What's So Special About "Special K?"

Seriously, I've never had Special K, what makes it so great?

We now come to the second letter already covered by someone else. I must admit that I will also cover one of his words, but here are some different words that start with K:


Koopa Troopa: One of the most basic and well-known of Bowser's Henchmen. Those little turtles pack a punch despite only being good for walking back and forth. They are also among the oldest enemies in the Mario series, appearing as "Shellcreepers" in the original Mario Bros game. Not "Super Mario Bros," mind you, the ORIGINAL Mario Bros. With the pipes and the crabs and everything. It wasn't until "Super Mario World" when someone finally realized that it would really neat if the Koopas could pop out of their shells. And it was, this simple little idea drastically improved the gameplay. It still didn't stop eight of them from marching in front of a lone shell that would coincidentally gave you a 1-Up if you managed to kick the shell at them.

A Koopa Troopa was also among the original 8 playable characters in the original Mario Kart game on the SNES. He was a heavyweight for some reason, but he was one of my favorite racers right after Toad. In Mario Kart 64, he was replaced by Wario and it was never the same. It wasn't until Double Dash on Gamecube where he made a triumphant comeback, and has been back in all of the games after that one. He remains as my favorite racer on Mario Kart Wii, where he's now a lightweight with Toad.

In the same vein as Goombas and Shy Guys, aside from being stupid, changing their color and giving them accessories changed what they were called and what they did. The most common of the Koopa Troopas were the Green Shelled ones, who just walked in a straight line, and the Red Shelled ones, who moved side to side and knew where cliffs were. Giving them blue shells made Yoshi fly, yellow ones made the Koopas invincible until Yoshi swallowed them and could create earthquakes with them. The red shells would also cause Yoshi to spit fire.

Adding wings made them Parakoopas. Adding a cape made them Super Koopas. Giving them helmets and hammers created Hammer Bros. Giving them a cloud to ride on create Lakitu. Making them fat and putting on a football helmet? Chargin' Chuck. Give them wands and put robes on them creates Magikoopas. Skeletons? Dry Bones. And so on.

Coincidentally, putting spikes on their shells made them either Minibosses (like Boom Boom), or bosses themselves, like the next entry.

The Koopalings: Yes, you can't talk about Koopas without talking about Bowser's seven children. Making their only major appearances in Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World, these are characters who have been majorly underused. After some research after writing that last sentence, it seems that they also appeared as bosses in "Mario Is Missing" and "Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga." I'm seriously behind on my portable RPGs, I seriously need to play Superstar Saga, I hear it's good. In recent games, they have been upstaged by Bowser Jr. The network seems to have added him mid-season when the other 7 children were becoming less cute, thereby having to avoid covering actual issues. I wouldn't call him "Cousin Oliver," he's more like those Cosby Kids who appear during the season premiere and are somehow retconned into the series by explaining that they were just standing outside of the camera range the entire time.

In case you were going to ask, their names are Larry, Lemmy, Iggy, Roy, Wendy O., Ludwig von, and Morton Jr. All but Larry and Morton Jr. are named after musicians (Lemmy Kilmister, Iggy Pop, Roy Orbison, Wendy O. Williams, Ludwig von Beethoven), while the other two are named after talk show hosts (Larry King & Morton Downey Jr.)

Kirby: Moving on to a different game series, the Kirby series happens to be one of my favorites. Kirby is a pink puffball hailing from the planet Popstar who inhales enemies to gain their powers and usually battles a giant duck named King Dedede in order to preserve the Fountain of Dreams so Popstar can sleep easier. Yeah, I have no idea what's in the drinking water in Japan, but I want some. I have been a fan since I first played Kirby's Adventure on the NES, which remains one of my favorite games to the point of playing it through again on Virtual Console.

I also firmly believe that Kirby Superstar on the SNES is the best Kirby game ever made. Not only do you have about 20 powers to choose from (my favorite being Mirror), the game is comprised of 7 different short games including a full-scale rehash of Kirby's Dream Land, a race game between Kirby & Dedede where you must beat the other player while eating the most food, a treasure hunting adventure game, a timed adventure game featuring the kickass Meta-Knight, a short Kirby's Adventure-like game, and a game where you travel across the galaxy to summon a wish-granting satellite to stop the Sun and Moon from fighting each other. Yeah. When you beat all of these games, you unlock "The Arena," where you battle every villain in the game with only a single life.

Whenever I'm not constantly wondering why this awesome game isn't on Virtual Console, I think about the upcoming Re-Release on the DS at the end of the year. Awesome. Also expect future blogs on the Best & Worst Kirby Abilities.

Ketchup: Here it is, the almighty Ketchup! My favorite of the condiments, it's a fact that out of the last 8 or 9 years, there's about 6 days total where I went 24 hours without a single drop of the stuff. Hell, I've been known to drink it straight out of the bottle. It's strange: I hate tomatoes, but love ketchup, but I don't know why. Like many people out there, I put Ketchup on almost everything, even stuff that should not have ketchup anywhere near it. I've tried it on ribs, corn on the cob, steak, lettuce, shrimp, raw onions, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, carrots, hot wings, Ruffles potato chips, even slices of bread. The only foods that it doesn't seem to improve are breakfast items like Pancakes, Waffles and French Toast, not to mention Pizza. I'll stick to syrup for those, thank you very much.

I'm also from the region of the country that calls it "Ketchup." I seriously have no clue as to why people spell it as "Catsup."



Is it seriously pronounced as "Cat-sup," or is it spelled that way and pronounced as "Ketch-up" simply to piss me off? Hell, even the spellcheck agrees with me. I'd like to travel in time to find the guy who first coined the word and bash him in the face with a "Ketchup" Bottle. Perhaps I already did and the guy went through with the wording simply because of the experience.

My brand of choice is "Heinz," all other brands simply bow down mercilessly to it. Hunt's? Fuck you, you're just an impostor! My favorite bottle is the 62oz ones that you buy in twin packs at Costco. I've eaten ketchup so much that I've been able to determine that it has a different taste depending on which bottle it comes out of. The best ones are from the giant Costco bottles and the glass bottles you find in diners. The worst ones are those dumb squeeze tubes that were used when they sold Green, Blue and Purple ketchup. As much as I admired the concept, that ketchup sucked! Red simply occurs in nature, eating a burger with blue sauce dripping from it instinctively causes one to gag.

I also hate ketchup packets to the core. Sure, opening the first two are easy, but when you open multiples of 6 like I do, you hands begin to get greasy and it makes gripping those little ridges at the top of the packet that much harder. When my high school cafeteria decided to not use those huge squeeze jugs of ketchup, they replaced them with ketchup packets. Every single day I protested this and question right to the cafeteria people that they had actively sought to make me angry in order to bring it back and never did.

So when I got to college and found that the squeeze jug is plentiful, you could only imagine the freakout I give whenever it runs dry.



Speaking of K, I can't believe I actually saw Kazaam in the theaters. I'm one of those eight people who are still awaiting their refund.





"The KKK took my baby away, they took her away, away from me-eee."

Friday The 13th Strikes Again!

I know Friday the 13th is mostly just superstition, but some important stuff just happened:

First, R Kelly got aquitted in his trial.

And not even an hour after that ruling, Tim Russert dies of a heart attack.

Probably couldn't handle the news. This is crappy news, I liked him.

J: A Jrop of Golden Jun?

Hey, it's Friday! I'm happy to say that my Summer class is finally over and that I can actually get some sleep done. Also, I'm announcing that I had a summer class that went on until now.

Fun fact about this letter: J is the only letter that does not appear on the Periodic Table.

I remember first being taught about the letter J. It makes the same sound as the "G" in "Giraffe." Jiraffe sounds kind of silly on text, but I fear that it'll become acceptable in the future and the current typing will be the one that will have the red squiggle under it.

Here are some other things that start with J.

Jim Carrey: Say what you will about this guy, but I love him. In fact, he was my main inspiration into being skewed towards comedy. I remember the exact moment when it happened: It was when I saw "Dumb & Dumber" in the movie theater and there was that scene where Jim's character had that dream where he's fighting people in a restaurant. It was where I realized "I now know what I was put on this planet to do: make people laugh." Sure, he's done a few clunkers recently, but I believe that he can do no wrong. The Mask is one of my favorite movies and is one of only two flicks that I saw twice in the theater. It may not come as a surprise to you folks that the other one is the Simpsons Movie.

Jessica: There is something about this name that I love. I know it might seem sexist, awkward and weird, but every woman that I have ever met that had the name "Jessica" was attractive. I absolutely don't know why, it seems that beauty is attached to the name. Case in point: Jessica's Biel, Tandy, Simpson, Alba, Rabbit. There have also been a few local Jessica's in my life that I've had crushes on, but I'll get into that another time. Maybe.

I actually looked up the meaning of the name and found this: "The name Jessica comes from the Hebrew origin. In Hebrew The meaning of the name Jessica is: Rich. God beholds. The daughter of Shylock in Shakespeare's play 'The Merchant of Venice'." It's also one of the most popular names for girls, it was the #1 name from the 1980s to the early 2000s. I'm not a fan of the new generation of names. I'd hate to go to a Kindergarten class in 5 years and find at least 6 versions of the name "Unique" or "Miley."

Jetfire: My favorite Autobot Transformer of all time. (On the other side of the coin, my favorite Decepticon is Soundwave). The original Generation 1 toy/character is the most memorable version and is the version one that everyone remembers and loves about him. He was, well, an awesome-looking jet that was made from a mold from a standard Macross/Robotech transforming jet. His backstory is nothing short of amazing: Back on Cybertron, he was a scientist that was best friends with Starscream. When the Great War occurred, Jetfire (called Skyfire in the cartoon for some reason) stayed behind while Starscream left to wage his destruction. When Jetfire arrived on Earth, he discovered Starscream as a member of the Decepticons. Not aware that the Decpticons are the evil transformers, Jetfire had trusted his best friend that the Autobots were the baddies and joins up. When he finally learns the truth, he actually tears off the Decpticon logo on his chest and slaps on an Autobot one that came from nowhere. I never got that detail, do all Transformers just have stickers of both logos on them at all times in the event that they ever defect to the other side?

Since the figure was mostly white with several smaller red attachments that could easily get lost along with the facts that large die cast figures like him could easily break, Jetfire is among the most sought-after of all transformers. It's not unusual to find it on eBay in excess of $50-$100, even higher if it has all of its accessories and/or in mint condition in its box. The highest one I've seen on eBay was around $500 for an extremely rare Decepticon variant. So rare, in fact, that I had no idea that it existed until I found it being auctioned off.

One of my most prized possessions is indeed a G1 Jetfire figure without its accessories in decent condition that I found at a flea market a few years ago. The cost? Three dollars. I kid you not, the guy selling it had no idea what it was. The figure in the condition that I bought him in could probably fetch around $25 or so.

I was like "Quit playin'," but he was honest and told me that it was something his kids played with that he didn't know what it was. I should mention that it was in its Jet mode, which is probably what caused the man's confusion. Finding the opportunity of a lifetime, it was quickly snatched and cleaned up to be put on display for all to see.

Johnny: My favorite character from the classic disaster spoof movie "Airplane!" Played by the late Steven Stucker, he was just this background character who'd pop into a scene with a hilarious interjection.

McCroskey: "Bad news: The fog is getting thicker."
Johnny: *jumps into scene* "And Leon's getting Laaaaaaaaarrrrgerrrr!" *jumps out of scene*

Nevermind Leslie Nielson all counting on us and asking us to not call him "Shirley," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Peter Graves asking Joey if he's ever been in a Turkish Prison, Barbara Billingsly talking Jive, even Robert Stack picking the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, Johnny is the best character in the whole damn movie.

Don't believe me? Watch this video chronicling his two total minutes of screen time:







"He's a Jukebox Hero. He's got stars in his eyes."






"Jammin' on The One, Jammin' on The One. Jam, Jam, Jam, Jammin' on The One."

"Eye" Just Can't Help Myself!

I assure you, the title is the first & only time on this blog where I'll be making that pun. I guarantee that you will never see that lame stunt pulled again.

So many words start with I, but many of them are two letter words that make the English language function as smooth as it does.

I, If, It, Is, In, and Igloble. Don't recognize that last one? I just invented it. Without these simple words, how could you tell people what you're doing? Or identifying some object? What about the opposite of "Out?"

Here are some actual words that begin with I.


Inspiration: An important word in my mind. I have several awesome ideas, they can all be due to inspiration, which comes from various sources. Usually inspiration comes in the form of reading or watching something interesting and then originating an idea to possibly improve on it. Some might call it "plagiarism," "laziness," or "theft," but I call it "Improvement." It's one thing to put your own spin on a topic (like the series I'm currently creating), but to steal/plagiarize it is completely different.

There are many times when I'm just laying down, mind completely blank, and then all of a sudden the thought of "I should write down some directions on how Mice can successfully handle Super Soakers!" would pop into my brain out of nowhere. I let many subjects "come to me," as in, I let my fingers to the typing and see what I get. Several of these blogs have originated from that very premise, especially the "Just For Kicks" entry where I typed down random phrases to have the blog be more accessible in Google Searches. Beaming For Bunnies is the #1 search for "Mustard Yellow Pinkjam!"

Where exactly have I received most of my inspiration? Believe it or not, it's either in the bathroom or driving. I'm casually taking a shower, and it suddenly hits me: I thought of five new words for one of these entries!

IHOP: The International House of Pancakes for those of you who actually need to be told what the acronym stands for. I love this place, but I never go there that often. Yes, it's a chain, but a delicious one at that. Sure, there may be better places to get pancakes, but you can't say "no" to eating at a place shaped like a Blue-Roofed Cathedral.

It was Lewis Black who mentioned that IHOP was his health club: "It's my health club because whenever you go to the International House of Pancakes, there's always someone there 500 pounds heavier than you'll ever be!" It's also where Lewis heard the immortal phrase "If it weren't for my horse, I would've never spent that year in college." And yes, the phrase "Hoggle of Coffee" perfectly describes the jug that you get your bean on with.

There's also no beating their Blueberry Syrup. Sorry "Strawberry," "Butter Pecan," and "Original," blue rules all.

Insomniac: I'm not the only person that watched this great Comedy Central show. Dave Attell, awesome, filthy New York comedian travels through major cities in the dead of night while getting drunk at the same time, armed only with his hat, his camera crew, and a disposable camera. You'd be surprised what actually goes on at night besides all the weird bars and clubs that he visits. Every episode started off with Attell performing a set in a local comedy club, and then begins his staggering through the midnight madness until the break of dawn. It seemed like a great job, and I loved watching each episode to see just what exactly goes on while we're all asleep and/or being shut-ins at night.

Among the things he's seen are attending a few night rodeos, go Nutria hunting, commit all 7 Deadly Sins in one night in Amsterdam (and succeeds!), take the Portland Underground Tour, travel through a few fetish clubs, visit the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, take a midnight tour of Six Flags New Orleans, visit Anchorage during the Summer Solstice where the sun was shining through the dead of night, and drink at a bar in NYC for dogs. One of my favorite episodes was, naturally, where he drinks his way back to NYC by starting at the East end of Long Island and travelling west. He even sees the Big Duck in Flanders!

Invader Zim: A cartoon at the top of the list of "Awesome Nickelodeon Cartoons Cancelled Before Their Time," which include The Angry Beavers, Ahh! Real Monsters, El Tigre, and the Spumco version of Ren & Stimpy. I'd add Rocko's Modern Life, but it had a good run and probably would've ended up as Camp Lazlo anyway.

Created by Jhonen Vasquez, the demented mind behind "Johnny The Homicidal Maniac," this was truly one of the greatest and most original Nicktoons to date. It was a about an alien named Zim (Richard Horvitz) who travels to Earth with his robot sidekick GIR (Rikki Simmons. Even GIR doesn't know what the "G" stands for in his name) in order to try and take over the World. Unfortunately, he sucks at it. He hails from the planet Irk, where rank is determined by height. Zim is fairly tiny for his race, and is the same height as a middle schooler. He also reaches Earth by accident, as he was "assigned" to take over a mystery planet as part of Irk's "Operation: Impending Doom 2." Did I mentioned that he was exiled to the planet Foodcourtia after some...mishaps during "Operation: Impending Doom I."

His only rival is his classmate Dib, who is an Amateur Paranormal Investigator. In the world of Invader Zim, Dib is the only reasonably intelligent main character besides Zim, so no one believes his accusations that Zim is an alien and believe he is crazy. The plots mostly focused on these dynamics, but had more aimless topics with a truly dark and/or random feel. A good example is the episode "Dark Harvest" where Zim is convinced by Dib that he would apear more human if he had human organs, so he decides to steal the organs of all the kids in school until he is a massive blob of organs. Another great one is "Room With A Moose," where Zim attempts to send a school bus full of his classmates into a wormhole in space that leads to a dimension that is nothing more than a small, white room with a freaky moose in it. "Say moosey Fate!"

I'll admit, I started out in writing by writing Invader Zim fanfictions. Fortunately for you people, none of the works from that time will ever see the light of day. They were mostly plagiarisms with Invader Zim characters in place of others, nowhere as good and funny as my current stuff (ie, what you're reading now), and full of terrible Mary Sue-like characters. Basically, like every other piece of fanfiction found everywhere. Hey, at least I didn't put the characters into unlikely pairings and had them constantly make out to each other with Linkin Park lyrics inbetween every paragraph.

In short, it was dark, it was well-animated and well-written, GIR was hilarious, and it was cancelled too damn soon. One reason behind it was that Nick realized that they actually gave a kid's cartoon to the guy who created Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. They claimed it was due to "low ratings," but that was because they had the show in the Friday 9:30pm time slot when most of their target demographic was either asleep or watching Cartoon Network. They also pulled the old "Bait & Switch" on us. Sure, they'd advertise an episode airing in the usual time slot, but instead have the same episode of "Baxter & Bananas" play twice in a row.

It's cancellation was the main reason that I have lost all faith in Nickelodeon. Besides what I said in the last paragraph, Nick didn't simply let the network air every episode in a season and then decide not to renew it. No, it did the rare feat by cancelling it while several episodes where in pre- or mid-production. For those of you who have the 3rd and 4th volumes on DVD, several of these unaired or unfinished episodes never saw the light of day, with a majority of them never airing in the United States for some reason. For at least six episodes, only the voice tracks were completed, so we hear awesomeness, but we can't see it. In the last real episode to actually air on Nick "The Most Horrible Xmas Ever," there's evidence for a few plot points that we never got to see, such as the existence of Minimoose (his premiere episode was one of those audio-only episodes) and the plot line of Dib's spaceship (which was the subject of 2 episodes that only made it to DVD and are awesome.) I'll also add that it has only been aired twice on Nickelodeon since the series untimely demise in 2002.

Fun Fact: Invader Zim premiered on March 31, 2001, the same night as Fairly Oddparents. Sadly, we all know which one lasted longer.




My favorite lolcat image. No other lolcat can has the glory of being as great as this one.


iPod: Those little MP3 players that everyone but me has. It's not that I can't afford it, I can. It's just that I don't want to shell out $150+ for something like a nano and then actually buy every single favorite song ever. Apple is kind of a bitch like that. I just never wanted one either, I didn't have that many songs that I liked and I didn't want to go with the flow. This subject came into my view when my MOM of all people got one. As I started to tinker with it, I realized that you can put all the songs on your CDS into iTunes and transfer them to the iPod.

Hmm...interesting. There's also the feature of having videos and podcasts on the iPod as well. The most basic of iPod holds at least 500 songs. What I'm concerned about is if I do actually get one, I just know that on the following day of my purchase. Steve Jobs will unveil a newer, cheaper, smaller version that holds a million songs, is the size of my thumbnail and dispenses yogurt. The possibility of iGalileo is slim, but it's becoming a possibility. The technology to make one a 2D shadow when rocking out to Rihanna has become more advanced in the last few years.

If you ask me, the prefixing of of "i" to everything is nothing more than a fad on its way out. Did no one remember the rise and fall of "e"? Lowercase "i" just isn't that cool or trendy anymore. Now "g," that's an attractive letter you can depend on!


If you need me, I'm going to go think up a definition for Igloble.





"You can't get very far in life without saying 'is,' now can you?"

H looks like a goalpost, doesn't it?

Or a part of a ladder. Whatever works.

What am I thinking? I had great prospects with this little series until I realized that I had to actually blog every day. 26 is a lot of letters. I'm only...8 letters in?! I must not stop now! I have my tens of readers to share my geekery with, and they'll be slightly off-put if this should end now!

With that out of the way, here are some things that start with H.



"Hot" Crayons: This is the term I referred to all of the bright, fluorescent colors in the Crayola Crayon box. With names like "Electric Lime," "Shocking Pink," and yes, "Hot Magenta," these were the best and brightest colors of the 96 color bunch. After "Silver," "Gold," and those limited edition crayons that had glitter in them, the "Hot" colors were the most sought after during Coloring Time. They were mostly used to color lights, the sun, or were just used because they looked so much better and brighter than the other colors. As we all know, bright colored things are awesome. I was surprised to read that most of them were created in or after 1990, way beyond the time of Day-Glo's heyday. Then again, I wasn't born yet when Day-Glo was popular, perhaps I'm lucky.

Horse Racing: The third race in the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, was run this past Saturday. For my fellow Long Islanders: I'm glad that it's finally over. You see, Big Brown, the winner of this year's Kentucky Derby & Preakness, was bred & trained on Long Island. When word got out that this year's Triple Crown Flavor of The Month was a LIer, shit broke loose. Big Brown Fever was everywhere in the media, and a capacity crowd was expected at Belmont, his "Home Track." You would've sworn that Big Brown was the title of the next Harry Potter book with the amount of hype he received. Hell, hopes were looking up when news broke that his biggest competition had been scratched the day of the race. I was at work when the race started and I had mentioned that I would've loved to have seen a Triple Crown Win actually occur in my lifetime, but I would giggle madly if he ended up losing.

Imagine the look on my face when I found out that he not only lost, but came in dead last!! (This is to all for formalities. When you read this entry a year from now, it won't look as topical and dumb.)

Half-Price Appetizers: Not as awesome as "Free Food," but it's still an important phrase in the Collegiate Dictionary. Usually offered by Applebee's, the after-10 hour begins a promotion where all appetizers are half-price until closing. Like the broke college students we are, it's an excuse to eat cheap and to celebrate a birthday or two at the same time. After so many Half-Price Bdays at Applebee's, I had to call it quits after a while because I was getting tired of the place. It's been several months now since the last time I went to one of those events, but I know of a few birthdays coming up.

It also seems that Buffalo Wild Wings participates in this promotion as well. They have better-sounding appetizers and I'll be checking those out pretty soon.

HersheyPark: Among my list of "Amusement Parks That I Really Want To Go Back To." Located in the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, it is one of the corner stones of the great Hershey candy corporation. I haven't been to the park in several years (last time was probably 2002) and I distinctly remember smelling chocolate everywhere. The coaster count at this park is nowhere near Cedar Point's, but manages to showcase an impressive 11 coasters. Its newest, Fahrenheit, opened just this year. There were only 9 coasters the last time I went there, the newest one at the time was the water coaster Roller Soaker. During that visit, I managed to accomplish the feat of riding every single one of them in a single day. Nine coasters is not that impressive, but the Trailblazer coaster is an enormous bitch for people taller than five feet.

There's also the famous Chocolate World, the simulated tour of how Hershey chocolate is made. From its beginnings as spiders living in cocoa beans, to its completion the Hershey Kisses you're probably eating right now, the tour gives moderate detail on what exactly happens between the closed doors of the actual factory, but with chocolate scents bring fanned around you! The tour ends in what is probably the largest Hershey Store in the country, which is awesome in its own right. Sadly, I thought the Times Square Hershey Store was impressive, but the M&Ms store right across the street from it puts it to absolute shame. Three huge floors compared to a single cramped one? I'll stick to going back on the tour to get my free sample at the end.

Before you ask, yes, there actually is a Hershey Highway. I must say that I hate travelling down that road. It's as awful going into it as it is coming back out.

Hobgoblins: One of my favorite MST3K movies. Though many films they covered may claim the title, Hobgoblins stands as one of the worst movies they ever riffed. It's so bad that its shown to Mike & The Bots as a punishment, and unlike the parents of today, this lived up to its warning. Made in 1989, it's nothing more than an awful, awful ripoff of Gremlins with the title monsters getting a maximum of five minutes of screen time. "Look at the nothing! Look at the nothing!"

The basic premise is that our wimpy protagonist, a young security guard, accidentally releases the Hobgoblins from their imprisonment in a vault on an abandoned movie lot and he must put them back before the sun rises. Why, you ask? The Hobgoblins feed on the fantasies of people and manipulate their thoughts to become real and have their victims ultimately kill themselves and/or others. If they do this to enough people, they'll become powerful enough to destroy the world and will become even stronger during daytime. I won't, and don't wish to, reveal much of what happens, but the "climax" occurs in the worst strip club ever.

The only things of note are the cameo appearance of Darran Norris, who is most known as the voice of Cosmo on the Fairly Oddparents and various other voices in the animation industry, and "Great Parking Moments." The rest of it is either flat, dumb, cheesy to the point of being embarrassing, and at one point, Mike & The Bots actually post up cardboard cutouts of themselves in the theater in order to sneak away from the movie for a few minutes. Watch the goodness here.



If I manage to keep my composure, expect the entry for I up tomorrow!




[H is also for Homestar Runner. It's where yesterday's blog title is from. But more specifically, it's from this issue of Teen Girl Squad.]

I can count to G!

Happy Tuesday, all. It's time to focus on a favorite letter of mine, G. It's a hefty piece of real estate.

Galileo: My moniker for this blog, and a majority of the Internet. But where does it come from? I'll tell you right now: It's my fraternity nickname. The nickname comes from my college's annual talent show, where the pledge classes from all of the Greek organizations act out a random skit. One of the things my class had to do was lip sync "Bohemian Rhapsody." Guess who was Freddy Mercury? There's your answer.

Grover: Far and away one of the greatest of the Sesame Street Muppet's. He's the man, and can do almost anything and it would be awesome. He could teach you the difference between neeeeear and...FAAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!, play Super Grover to save the world from the Letter of The Day, or just annoy the Fat Blue Muppet that's in all of his segments with manic exuberance. He could surely kick Elmo's ass 8 times, because that's the number that today's show is sponsored by.

Hell, he's the star of one of my all-time favorite Kid's books "There's A Monster At The End of This Book!" (Spoiler: It's him. Sorry kids.) And who could forget "Monster In The Mirror," which gave me one of my very first exposures to the Simpsons. Wubba-wubba-wubba woo woo woo, Hubba-wubba-wubba and a doddily doo. I have not heard that song in several years, that was completely by memory.

Played by Frank Oz, he's among the great pantheon of furry blue Muppet's which include Herry Monster, Cookie Monster, and our next subject.

The Great Gonzo: Another furry blue Muppet, he's one of the all-stars of the Muppet Show, and one of my personal favorites. Technically, he's one of the only main Muppet's to be in every episode, thanks to his weekly trumpet blowing after the theme song. Another hapless Muppet performer like Fozzie, he strives to be liked despite his bizarre behavior. His awesomely unique feats include eating a tire to "The Flight of The Bumblebee," demolishing a car with a hammer to the tune of "The Anvil Chorus," balancing himself on a tightrope while holding a piano and reciting the 7 times tables, hypnotizing chickens, and showing off dancing cheese. Usually these acts would cause him to get booed off the stage moments after the curtains rise, but he eventually ends them himself due to his own misfortunes.

For those of you like me who watched Muppet Babies as a kid, you may be familiar with the running theme of Gonzo's crush on Miss Piggy. It was an interesting dynamic to say the least, but I shall reveal that this crush ultimately ended in the Madeline Kahn episode of the Muppet Show." When Ms. Kahn rejected his marriage proposal, he then settled on an obsession for chickens, namely Camilla. He's also one of the rare Muppet's to have a movie devoted to him, in his case it was "Muppet From Space" where it's revealed that Gonzo is an alien...but the species is still unnamed.

Another aspect that I love about this Muppet is his name. I find it hilarious that in "Muppet Christmas Carol," he's credited as "The Great Gonzo." Alliteration bonus! +5!

Garfield Minus Garfield: The classic comic strip Garfield is a favorite of mine, even if it has been...lagging in the last few years. JON GOING OUT WITH LIZ IS KILLING THE WHOLE DAMN STRIP...sorry bout that, must be my trick knee acting up again. Anyway, the strip itself with Garfield is amusing and a somewhat sense of normalcy among the funny pages with its quirky characters and story lines. But then a guy named Dan Walsh decided "what if I took Garfield out and left everyone else in?"

You would think it's freaky enough that Jon talks to his cat, whose only thoughts are known to us, but when you take Garfield out altogether the strip becomes much different. No more wisecracks or "I hate Mondays;" what we see is a lonely man on the brink of schizophrenia and manic-depression. What used to be simple jokes about how Jon loves polyester accordions are now views into his life with several empty panels with no one to talk (or think) back to him, just like a normal person would when talking to inanimate objects. When Jim Davis got work of this, he didn't send his drone of Cease & Desist lawyers like he usually does. It turns out that he loves it!

Guy Fieri: I told you back in the A entry that I'd cover this Food Network Personality. He happens to be the first winner of the reality show "The Next Food Network Star," and unlike some shows, it actually kept up its end of the bargain and Guy is somewhat of a household name of Food Network junkies. He hosts a cooking show "Guy's Big Bite," and a road show called "Diners, Drive-In & Dives," where he showcases odd mom & pop places around the country.

The main problem that some people have with him is his personality. He's 40 years old, but looks and talks like a 22 year old over-tanned California surfer. He also spouts "hip" fifty-cent catchphrases such as "bonzer," "off the hook," "that's how I roll," or "that's money" whenever describing something that's delicious. I don't find him to be that particularly annoying, he's a much better FN Personality than, say, Paula Deen or, God forbid, Rachel Ray, but there are some qualities about him that I've noticed in his shows.

His "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" show is a favorite of mine, where Guy goes into these odd little restaurants to check out the decor and the food from the kitchen itself. Usually in kitchens people were things like gloves, and nets, and shoes, but not Guy. He just strolls in with some flip flops and bare hands and samples food that's fresh to the point of still being in the pan. Sometimes this is not enough: it's not uncommon for him to casually walk up to a few customers and happily eat their food. He always take huge bites that would make a Hoover proud, and even gives commentary while spitting the food back to its preparer with his still-crammed hamster pouch. That should raise some eyebrows and health issues, and I hear that newer episodes are filmed while the restaurant is thankfully closed. If I ever went to a place and found out that an episode was being filmed the day I was there, I would think twice on which entree to order. Click here for a great example where he does everything but eats food that's not on his plate. He almost does, but he simply settles on ogling his neighbors' plates.

I liken him to two ideas: The first, with his deplorable food manners and his habit of not taking any precautions in the kitchen liken him to Cookie Monster. You always see him eat and eat but never swallow a thing! The other, which is his Diner show itself, reminds me of that old SNL sketch where Phil Hartman plays Bill Clinton jogging into a McDonalds and eats everyone's food while everyone stares in awe. The people at this thread at Television Without Pity have addressed all of these issues, and have even given him the nickname "Tater Tot." To paraphrase Dan: Don't ask, just read.


Hope you liked today's letter, check in tomorrow for things that start with H!




"That's nothing, I can count from Purple backwards!"

Why The F Not?

I'll tell you why the F not, because that's today's letter. F! I hope no one out there got any this semester.

Futurama: One of my favorite animated shows of all time, combining the hilarity of the Simpsons and Science Fiction that had far surpassed Geekery and emerges in Nerd territory. Like another F-lettered series Family Guy, it premiered in 1999 and, while gaining a cult following, was shamefully cancelled by the "brilliant" Fox Execs after four production seasons. Also like Family Guy, years of reruns and excellent DVD sales (not to mention a few Molotov Cocktails not, um, tossed by me) have prompted a long-awaited revival. But unlike FG, where it continues to the point where we almost regret bringing it back, the show has come back in four Direct-To-DVD movies that will be aired on Comedy Central.

The first movie "Bender's Big Score," has already come and gone, but the second entry "Beast With A Billion Backs" hits stores June 24! I assure you that I'll be first on line for that one.

Fozzie Bear: Anyone who knows the muppets knows Fozzie Bear, the wisecracking jokester on The Muppet Show and beyond. Performed by by the incredible Frank Oz (another F!), this character rose from a hapless background comic relief in Season 1 to the Superstar he is today. The inadvertent bane of Statler & Waldorf's existences, the Muppet Show audience seems to like him more than Gonzo's acts but slightly below Marvin Suggs, and have been known to erupt into cheer whenever news breaks that he is unable to perform.

I'm beginning to wonder when Fozzie first adopts his catchphrase "Wokka Wokka Wokka!" I'm about 3/4 into watching the 3rd season of the Muppet Show on DVD (his face adorns the cover to boot!) and he has yet to utter it.

Feasting on Asphalt: One of Alton Brown's signature shows on Food Network. I mentioned this briefly in the A entry, but I haven't gone into detail. After watching the mini-marathon of Season 2 on Saturday, I have truly realized how great this series is. It's a travelogue miniseries where Alton and an entourage of his buddies travel along the Mississippi River coast on motorcycles searching for great food destinations. Did I mention that he narrates the whole thing, still keeping up with his wit and awesome geekishness? You should have seen my face when wandering through a Border's one day to stumble upon Feasting on Asphalt: The Book! I'd want him to read the audiobook version, but I soon realized that it would completely defeat the purpose of watching the tv show

Among the locations that Alton visits in the episode that I managed to catch in the 1am rerun are the birthplace of Popeye The Sailor with a giant statue erected in his honor. Alton a few of his crew take part in a tribute meal of the consumption of Popeye brand Canned Spinach right next to the statue. Lucky Bastard.

He also visits the town of Alton, Illinois where he was horrified to discover that he had been pronouncing his name incorrectly his whole life (Al-Ton as opposed to Awl-Ton), and visits the Pie-Town restaurant that serves excellent pies as well as "The Best Pecan Pie North of The Mason-Dixon." He mentions that his rapper name would be Pie-Town. I would totally buy an album with that name, even if he currently needs no help doing so as is.

Free Food: The two greatest words in the college language. At my college, any mention of "Free Food" will send people running in anticipation no matter what's being given away. A one or two dollar "donation" is usually a deal-breaker for me. Hell, in this economy, free anything is a plus. Free ketchup? I'm there! Free mints? Sign me up! Free wet napkins? Damn, call the pit boss, I just won the fucking lottery!!

Freakazoid: Like Earthworm Jim in the previous post, this cartoon was also one of the original shows in the Kids' WB Lineup. Once again, it was short-lived and underrated. Created by Bruce Timm, who was also the mastermind behind the Superman, Batman, and Justice League series of recent date (hell, the whole DCAU), it was seemingly the corner stone of the superhero awesomeness that was to come. Fortunately for us, what we received was one of the most hilariously bizarre shows to ever emerge from the 90s that had not been seen before, and sadly since. It involved a computer nerd named Dexter Douglas receiving a manic alter-ego after accidentally inputting a special code sequence that pulled him into the Internet of 1995, and using this new persona to save the world only he knew how.

He was more insane and funny than super-powered, but he definitely had powers of his own. He had wit, he had blue skin, he had speed, he could almost fly (consisting of running around while holding out his arms), and would usually defeat villains by yelling at them. His best friends were his girlfriend Stef, Police Sergeant Cosgrove (voiced and designed after Ed Asner), his butler Professor Jenkins (Richard Harris) and his "driving instructor" Roddy McStew (voiced by pre-Drew Carey Show & talk show host Craig Ferguson). Other reoccurring characters on his show included Fanboy (played by Flounder from Animal House), Foamy The Freakadog, the Monty Python-Esque Lord Bravery, The Huntsman (whose cartoons only involved him reacting to a false alarm of his Horn of Urgency) and Emmit Neverend, a strange non-speaking character that appears somewhere in every episode to create a elaborate geekish "Where's Waldo?" game. Among the villains he fought were The Lobe, Cave Guy, Arms Akimbo (a con artist whose arms are frozen in the hands-on-hips position), and *whispers* Candle Jack...

This show was originally on an old list of mine of Cartoons That Aren't On DVD (But Should Be). All my firebombing at WB seems to have paid off as a Season 1 release has finally been confirmed for July! I strongly believe that the kids of today are maldeveloped due to the lack of exposure to this great show. Now they'll finally be enriched in their dull lives!

Ok, I'm obviously not getting the message out by writing about it, just watch this video:






[F is also for Four, the number of times Emmit Neverend appears in the above video]

E is for Pants

Ah, E. That letter of the alphabet that looks like a backwards 3. We've come to one of the letters already done by someone else, but now I present my own take on the fifth letter.

Earthworm Jim: Yes, the 90s video game series where a worm becomes a superhero when a super suit falls on him from space. A hilariously odd video game series where he battles villains such as Psy-Crow, Evil The Cat, Bob The Fish, and Professor Monkey-For-A-Head. Hell, it was even adapted into a short-lived animated series which was one of the original shows on the Kids' WB lineup. (and, like some of the other shows I mentioned before, was incredibly underrated). Sadly, his last appearance anywhere was in the fighting game "Clayfighter 63 1/3" and its Blockbuster-Exclusive sequel "Clayfighter: Sculptor's Cut"

Just when we thought that this great series was gone forever, its creators at Interplay announced that a full scale revival is in the works! Yes, it seems that a new video game, cartoon series, and movie are in the works, and that the first few games will come to the Wii's Virtual Console. Excellent.

Elekid: My favorite pokemon of all time. He's the Pre-Evolution of Electabuzz, another awesome pokemon (who also got kickass evolution Electivire in the Diamond/Pearl games). What makes this one so special? I haven't really thought about that. Perhaps he evolves into Electabuzz, which is a kickass pokemon in its own right. I also love its design, I especially like the detail of having plugs for ears. Maybe it's his name? The fact that he has a somewhat reoccurring role in the recent season of the anime? I don't really know. What I do know is I think he kicks ass and I love it.

Egg Rolls: I love Egg Rolls. Those Chinese restaurant delights, I don't know what they're made of, but I don't really give a damn. I'm unsure just WHY I like them, I just do. Whenever someone brings leftovers from takeout or someplace and I discover an egg roll, I imagine that Christmas came early for me. I've tried the microwaveable egg rolls that they sell in the supermarket, but I need the pure stuff.

Earboy: Any fan of the 90s Nick sketch show All That will be quite familiar with this name. He was your normal, teenage boy...but with really huge ears. You'd think that this would be completely dumb, but the entire cast made this work. The talented Josh Server, the Tim Meadows of All That, played Earboy as he struggled to fit in and try to be "normal." He originally was in a school where everyone either teased him or fled in terror due to his huge ears; he eventually transferred to a different school with kids of similar deformities: Egghead (egg for a head), Four Eyes (two irises in each eye), Tinseltooth (girl with foil in her mouth), and his best friend Pizzaface (Kel Mitchell with a slice of pizza for a face).

Whenever Earboy felt down in the dumps or was wondering what hilarious scheme he'd get into that sketch, he'd turn to his good friend and mentor Ross Perot, mainly due to being successful while also having big ears. All That was one of those rare kids shows that actually addressed some level of political satire, and Ross Perot was a very timely and hilarious subject. He was hilariously played by Katrina Jenkins, and would always ramble on that he has "Four Billion Dollars." After everyone got too old and left to do other things, the show and my views on Nick itself were never the same.

Elephant Issues: This was Tiny Toon Adventure's obligatory "Preachy" episode with 3 cartoons dealing about stuff you normally wouldn't find on a kid's show unless mandated by the "Cartoon Should Make Kids Learn Even If They Really Don't Have To Foundation." The first two segments are not that special, learning about Illiteracy via Dizzy Devil and a story involving Prejudice with Montana Max and a robot. But it's the final segment, titled "One Beer" that makes it infamous.

It involves Hampton, Plucky, and an out of character Buster (only for the purposes of this cartoon) taking a single sip of beer and becoming trashed off their asses for 7 minutes. They eventually steal a cop's car and drive it off a cliff, where they presumably die. They then walk off the set asking "Do you think we can do a funny show tomorrow?" It's due to this segment that the episode had been shown only once on Fox and once on Nickelodeon before being pulled forever. And I was one of those lucky people who managed to watch it.



(Today's blog title, and yesterday's were inspired by this cartoon)

D is for Lysdexia

After consideration, I've enjoyed typing these entries. I consider the associated words in each entry as "Blog Vignettes" with subjects that I'm probably not patient or creative enough to pull out into full entries, or at least not yet.

As promised, here are some things that begin with the letter D.

Dilbert: One of my favorite comic strips of all time, right behind Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side. I came to love it when I entered the workforce and found much of the subject matter relating and hilarious. It's the reason why I'm able to see when people are being stupid, as well as why I'll never work in an office. Plus, Dogbert and Catbert are awesome. I'm currently a card-carrying member of Dogbert's New Ruling Class, an organization where every subscriber of the Dilbert Newsletter will have their lives spared when Dogbert finally takes over the world.

There was even a short-lived 30 episode animated series that aired in 1999, which was awesome. It's a cartoon that's greatly underrated and was created, and then purged during the rise & fall of Adult Primetime Cartoon Shows on network tv in the late 90s. More on this subject in the future.

Here is a recent comic that I actually found to be so great that I cut it out of the newspaper:

I don't know about you, but I love the phrase "bag of nothing."

Dan's Corner of The Internet: A blogger friend of mine and a fellow regular at X-E. His blog is filled with an odd mishmash of subjects carried by his own geekish insight. One of my favorite details is his Blogroll (the list of blogs on the right margin), where a funny description of each link pops up when you highlight it. He has the distinction of giving my favorite description for this blog: "Don't ask questions, just click and go read." I highly recommend doing so.

Doughnuts: Is there anything they can't do? Another blogger friend DC had informed me yesterday that it was National Doughnut Day! I keep missing out on these events, so I was ecstatic that I managed to be informed on time for this one. I rarely eat doughnuts, but when I do...delicious. One of my favorites is Strawberry Glazed, which was entirely special during my high school years, as it was the rarest and most sought after of doughnut. Whenever someone gave out Dunkin Donuts, there were usually two of them in a spread of at least 30, and they were usually both gone by the time the box came to me. So when I finally managed to grab one, I made that bitch last.

My other favorite is Bavarian Creme, that hole-less powdered donut with the deliciously sweet cream filling. Whenever I need a burst of energy, I bite into one of these things and it does its job. You should have seen the look on my face when I realized that there are Bavarian Creme Munchkins too! And before you ask: No, Boston Creme is not the same thing. If you give me one of those, you better start running, boy.

Deep-Fried Broccoli: As strange as it may sound, deep-frying is the only way I'll eat broccoli. I don't know why, but it just tastes great, and non-deep frying just won't cut it. It all began years ago during my weekly Saturday Night Diner Dinners with my family. You see, before I didn't want to be seen in public with my parents, Saturday used to be the one day of the week that my parents and I were all home and went out for dinner. One of our main places to go was a local diner, which had great diner food, and inspired my love of Diners. We stopped going there a few years back when it got new owners, despite keeping most of the food the same.

Back in the day, whenever someone ordered an entree that wasn't a burger, they got an appetizer of sorts of deep-fried broccoli. It may have been the breading that they used to coat it, but it tasted fantastic. I had tried to duplicate the flavor not long after they had stopped giving it out, but to no avail. I can still imagine what it tastes like at this very moment, a strange memory effect that also allows me to remember the taste of TMNT Pudding Pies. I should work on perfecting a new recipe for the stuff, I want to eat it again.

Delta Psi Omega: The name of the fraternity that I belong to. I pledged in the spring of 2005 and I have not regretted a minute of it. I will admit that by doing so, it has saved my life in a way. Back during my freshman semester, I was on a real depressive tear. I had only one friend in college, everyone I knew before then had gone off to other things, and some events occurred where I had felt a deep sense of betrayal. Had I not ended up pledging, I would not know where I'd be right now. I do have a great sense of Brotherhood, with my only regret being that I'm not as outgoing or helpful as I'd like to be. Maybe I'll take that class with Wally.

As for stereotypes about Frats? Yes, I know them all, but most of them are not true. Yes, some of them are and every fraternity has brothers who are living Stereotypes, but they're just the tip of the iceberg in terms of diversity. You see past these things and you find that each of them have their own lives, their own problems, their own awesome experiences, their definition of "Brotherhood," their own wishes to leave their college and this world better than how they found it. Not all of us are beer-bong guzzling, screw-em-and-leave-em, beer ponging douchebags, especially with me. I'm bad at beer pong.

(As of this entry, both Dan & DC's blogs are added to the links list! I just wanted to wait until D-Day...which was yesterday)

C is for Clinton, that's good enough for me

I decided to change the pace of the titling of my "Things That Start With __" series. I didn't like the prospect of 26 straight entries with the same title, much less the same URL. That gets annoying sometimes when I want to link more than one of these entries elsewhere.

Without further adieu, here are some things that start with C.

Colbert Report: Yes, that amazing Fake News show that follows the Daily Show. Hosted by Stephen Colbert playing "Stephen Colbert," a humorously egotistic, ignorant blowhard pundit that likes "Nailing" people, it took to the airwaves in 2005 to fill the once-dark voided gap that is the post-Daily Show time slot. Sure, "Tough Crowd" did its job for a while, but it got cancelled. It's replacement, "Up Late with Adam Carolla," didn't even last an eight as long. But this spin-off has seemed to have taken the Late Night Comedy shows by storm providing a nice contrast to his "Warm-Up Act" and it seems that it has its mighty lock on the 11:30pm slot. I'll shamefully admit, I tune into this show much more than the Daily Show, but I've been getting back into the 1-2 Punch after the writers came back.

One of the main trademarks is the pronunciation of the show itself. Due to Colbert having a French last name, the "Report" in the title has a silent T like its predecessor, so it's said as "Colber Repor." Fortunately, this is not the only place it's used in the show, as its sports segment "Sport Report" is pronounced as "Spore Repore." I love that so much.

There is so much more I could list about how awesome it is, but for right now I'll mention the "Colbert Bump." It's the sudden surge in popularity one person, object, or news item receives after a mention on the CR. Without it, would anyone of us have heard about Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Barney Frank, Ron Paul, OK GO, Rain or even Mike Huckabee?! Probably not. The bump is how Stephen got a minor league hockey team's mascot, a bridge in Hungary, a female tortoise, and a flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream named after him, gave Mike Huckabee any sort of chance in getting double digits in this year's primaries, and have every congressman featured on his "Better Know A District" segment re-elected, including Barney Frank and the one who couldn't name the 10 Commandments.

Today's blog title comes from the show. It was when Stephen was interviewing a former Obama staffer who was fired from the campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a "Monster." He suggests to her "Why not a good monster, like Cookie Monster?"

Cedar Point: My favorite amusement park that I've been to. Taking up an entire peninsula on Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio, it's referred to as "America's Roller Coast" due to having the most roller coasters in an amusement, with most of them either record breakers, rare coaster types like the Stand-Up, Wild Mouse and Suspended Coasters or coasters that were the tallest in the world when it opened (no less than 5 of them had this record at one time or another). Their current coaster count is 17, 15 if you don't count the two "kiddie coasters" Jr. Gemini and Woodstock Express. It also holds the distinction of being the largest non-Disney amusement park, the most visited Seasonal Amusement Park in the world, and voted as Best Amusement Park by Amusement Today every year since the magazine began giving out the Golden Ticket awards (10 years!)

I went there back in June of 2003, and as a Coaster Junkie it was a dream come true for me. It was the year Top Thrill Dragster (the Tallest in The World at the time) had just opened and had went through its first "Extended Downtime" the exact week I was there. I was bummed for ten minutes, but I didn't care, I was at Cedar Point and it kicked ass! My favorite coasters from there is a toss up between Millennium Force (the most popular ride in the park, 310 feet tall) and Magnum XL-200 (205 feet tall, rode 5 times). Both of them were awesome and I can't decide at this present time.

I'd give anything to go back there again, my rides on every coaster still resonate in my mind! And if society allowed, I'd cram myself into one of those Kiddy Coaster Simulators at the mall that lets you ride Blue Streak & Gemini, but they just won't be the same.

Carnivals: Kind of like Cedar Point, but much more local and doesn't charge anything to get in. Unfortunately, it shows. Back when I was a kid, I'd always pester my parents to go on the various rides like the Scrambler, the swing ride, the bounce castle, the spinning apples, the lame roller coaster and that old time favorite, the huge-ass slide that could fit 6 people that you slid down using burlap sacks.

As time went on, I found out that there were places much better than the carnival and stopped going on the rides and instead focused on the other stuff it had to offer. A good example are the games. Yes, they're rigged and I knew it, so I didn't play many of them, if not once to see just how rigged they are. I tell you, I hate that "Lob The Monstrously Hard Softball Into a Giant Bucket That's on An Angle" game and I never quite got the point of the one where you used a BB gun to take out a star. But the ones I did love were the Goldfish games (I had won and lost several, but I had a carnival-won one that lasted 9 years), and the Quarter Machines. That's what I called that game where the discs with various prizes spun in a circle and you had to knock the disc in the hole at precisely the right time or else you don't get squat. Frustrating at first, but years of training and a lucky streak netted the ability to be able to land several discs at once and figure out how to hit the "Choice" discs which were half the size.

It just so happens that this is the weekend where the local Greek Orthodox Church runs its annual "Greek Festival" that's right next to the CVS that I work at. This means parking nightmare for a carnival that isn't even that good by Long Island Carnival standards. I decided to say "screw it" and go there on my break on Saturday to get food in lieu of giving up my spot to go to my usual fare.

Chili's: Yes, it's a chain, but it happens to be my favorite. Is it because of the "atmosphere?" No. Is it due to the wacky, kitchsy food items to let you know that there a giant jalapeno peppers everywhere? Hell no. It's the ribs. Yes, I love ribs, and as far as chains go, they have my favorite Baby Backs.

BBQ Sauce. Yes, it's Chain Ribs so you don't get much meat on them, but they make up for it in flavor. There's about 6 variations to choose from, but I get a mix & match of Blazin' Habanero (not that hot, sadly) and Memphis Dry Rub (lots of good spices, but less meat on it than the Habanero one for some reason). I was just there last night and I found out why I like them so much, and it's the dipping sauce that comes with the ribs. Apparently they give you a different dipping sauce with each kind of ribs, and the ones that come with Habanero & Memphis Dry Rub are delicious enough to wonder why Chili's hasn't covered the ribs on that stuff. I can't quite describe the taste but one of the sauces was actually hotter than the Habanero sauce on the ribs itself. I would bottle that stuff and drink it daily. If the place wasn't crowded I would've downed the stuff like a shot. They looked more appetizing than those "funky" margaritas they try to pimp out at you. (Yes, the quotes emphasize the point this time.)

Chowder: There's two subjects that interest me on this word: Chowder the food, and Chowder the cartoon.

I've never tried the food, but the item itself has piqued my interest in the last few months. I know the difference between New England & Manhattan (it's the one with tomatoes), but I wonder how it tastes? Sweet? Meaty? Good? Clams? Anyone out there know so I can finally buy one of those cans of New England that I see on my CVS shelf all the time?

As for Chowder the cartoon, I must say that it's actually pretty excellent. Created by Spongebob and Billy & Mandy storyboard artist and writer CH Greenblatt, the series as a whole depicts the life of Chowder, an apprentice Chef to the great Mung Daal and the crazy universe that they live in. Since the show deals with food, the characters on the show have all been named after various food items, such as our protagonist, his master Mung Daal, his wife Truffles, the rock monster Schnitzel, Gazpacho the food vendor, and so on. The animation is superb, and I love its voice cast: John DiMaggio (Schnitzel), Tara Strong (Truffles), Dana Snyder (aka Master Shake as Gazpacho), Mindy Sterling (Ms. Endive, Mung Daal's rival), Lillian Mumy (Endive's apprentice Panini, Chowder's non-girlfriend), Dwight Schultz (the guy who played Murdoch on the A-Team voices Mung Daal), and newcomer Nicky Taylor as Chowder.

I have no idea where they found this kid, but he's the perfect voice for the character. He fumes the perfect playfulness and childhood innocence that belongs to a character like this, and he's quite the actor. He managed to pull off a rare occurrence in kid's cartoons, which is creating a character that's cute while not being annoying. This is how animation should be, it just has that perfect combination of writing, animation, and voice acting that makes it all work. A second season had just been confirmed (with the latter portion of Season 1 premiering last night), as well as a DVD on the way! I can rest assured that it's one of the best shows that has hit Cartoon Network in literally years. I definitely recommend this show for anyone, and I assure you that this won't be a guilty please, just a normal one.

I leave you with a video of some great clips of the show:



The clips are from the first few episodes. While they're all excellent, the series as a whole has gotten even better than this.



"Say Chowdah, Frenchy!"

Things That Start With B

Well, since I liked typing out my previous "Things That Start With" entry, I've decided to do something I haven't done before: daily blogging!

I'm going to spend each day for the next 25 days posting an entry about things that start with the other 24 letters. Today is B, tomorrow will be C, and so on 'til we get to Z on June 30th. Regardless of whether I have another post that day, these will be posted. Keeps the mind flowing.

And now, my Things That Start With B.

Boardwalks: Yes, as I've mentioned here various times, I enjoy Boardwalks. There is just a certain atmosphere about them that I just enjoy. I normally hate the beach, but I like things that are associated with the beach, which is kind of weird. I like those Beach Towns like Myrtle Beach & Coney Island (hell, several Long Island towns are beach towns), little kitschy beach stores that sell dumb tourist items like Bottled Sand and have little tanks that have sharks swimming in them, and Boardwalk itself, with all the shops and attractions that are found along it. I guess it's the atmosphere itself that I love, and not so much the beach.

Like I said in the last post, I've always wanted to see Atlantic City's. I want to see exactly why it's the most expensive property on the Monopoly board. Maybe find Baltic & Mediterranean Avenues too to see if they're really $30 a night slums.

Banjo-Kazooie: One of my favorite N64 games of all time which inspired quite a few sequels, including another favorite of mine, Banjo-Tooie. Basically the plot of this game is that Banjo, a bear and his friend Kazooie, a Breegull who lives in his backpack, must travel to Gruntilda the Witch's lair to rescue Banjo's sister Tootie from having her beauty stolen. Along the way they must collect Music Notes (their version of Coins), Jigsaw pieces (the game's equivalent of Stars) and Jinjos (little lizard creatures that give you a Jigsaw, or Jiggie, if you collect all 5 in each world). You also get to transform into several creatures like a Termite, a Bee, a Walrus, a Crocodile, a Pumpkin, and a Washing Machine (which was only activated by gamesharking a Cheat code and you couldn't actually use it fully until the sequel).

All in all, it's a solid gaming experience with several strange levels including a forest where the seasons change depending on which door you enter, a haunted house with an annoying demon that haunted the dining room, a Bay with poisonous water, a sewer where you enter a giant mechanical fish, and the obligatory Desert, Swamp and Snow levels. Even Grunty's Lair was amazing in itself. And the overall game became even more epic when the sequel was released. But, hell...that game was difficult, but it was challenging to say the least. I was both happy and saddened that the influx in cheat codes in Banjo-Tooie made dying so much harder.

I met my best friend in Middle School through discussion of Banjo-Kazooie. I haven't seen him in six years. He ended up finding me on myspace a year ago.

B-52s: One of my favorite bands, for good reason. For those of you who have made it this far in life without listening to "Love Shack," "Rock Lobster," "Cosmic Thing," their cover of the "Rocko's Modern Life" theme and/or "Roam"...then you are a cyborg and must be killed. Or deaf, in which case I apologize for that. They have quite a unique sound, with strange lyrics belted out by the sultry duo of Kate Pierson & Cindy Wilson, with the unique pitch of Fred Schneider's voice that must be heard to be believed. Try to impersonate him, it's a bit tough. Even Tom Tucker from Family Guy has attempted it, but admitted that his impression needed work. If anyone saw The Daily Show earlier this week, Jon had Fred on to read/sing excerpts from Scott McClellan's book. Awesome, I would love to hear him read an audio book of something, I'd definitely buy it.

Whatever is happening, it always seems like they're having fun, and I believe that these good times have resulted in the prevention of having the band members age a day. It amazes me that the band has been around since the late 70s and every member looks and sounds exactly the same.

I've always loved them and I had recently discovered that they had released a new album "Funplex" a few months ago, which looks to be just as great as previous outings. Here's a video of the titular song:



Bacon: Those little strips of pork, I absolutely despise this stuff. It amazes me how not liking this stuff put me at risk of Geek License Revocation. I mostly hate how it smells, it simply makes me queasy sniffing it while it grills. I'm also not one to cite health reasons (hell, I frequent buffets and White Castle, eat scrambled egg sandwiches with cheese and sausage, and I've been known to eat 24 buffalo wings in single sittings), but my heart begins to punch itself whenever I see it on a burger, much less hear a story of how someone managed to order a plate of bacon at a Friendly's and actually get it.

Jim Gaffigan might love this stuff, but I don't like it one bit. Hell, I don't even like Kevin Bacon that much, and I tend to stay at least 7 degrees away from him at all times. You like it? Fine by me, more for you.

Beaming For Bunnies: The very blog you're reading right now! A question that I hoped that you yourself have asked was "how did he come up with the name?" If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll see where I got the inspiration. The one point of it that I have yet to mention is why and how the name came to be.

The full context is this blog entry at X-Entertainment.com where Matt, the site's humble overlord, describes his Easter findings, which includes a stuffed bunny inspired by those Cadbury Creme Egg ads with the clucking bunny. I'm one of those people who, when they hear some random phrase, immediately thinks "That sounds like an awesome band name!" and nothing ever comes to fruition about it. The phrase "Beaming For Bunnies" elicited one of those moments, but it just didn't feel like "Band Name" material. It seemed more like an Album title, or in this case...the title for a blog.

Barack Obama: Usually, I'm not one to get political, but you can't ignore the amazing fact that we have our first African-American presidential nominee ever, along with a strong showing of the first serious Female-American candidate. Whichever point on the politcial spectrum that you lie on, you have to admit it's pretty awesome.

What I find amusing is when various news reporters interview Clinton supporters about who they're going to vote for now that Hillary isn't going to be the nominee. A fair amount of them had responding by saying that they would vote McCain. What I love most is the awkward pause that occurs when they were asked "why," when they knew that they had to admit that the wouldn't vote for him because he was black. Sigh.

That's it for today, check back tomorrow for C!


*Yes, I got the Ice Key in Banjo-Tooie. It's how you get the Giant Glowbo.

Things That Start With A

We kick off June blogging with an idea that was inspired by fellow blogger Dan's take of other fellow blogger dohopoki's idea to create an entry about stuff relating to one's life that start with a certain letter.

So, continuing this line of "theft," I present some things that start with A.

Asteroids: Yes, either the kickass old school video game or the big chunks of space rocks, they're both pretty much awesome. This subject came into recent view when I learned from the British "Numbers We Pulled Out of Our Arses Society" that there are the bizarre odds that one British citizen will be killed by one every 7,000 years. They've also calculated that there is a 5,000,000/1 chance that a Brit will die while being scalded by really hot tap water. Pansies.

A Case of Spring Fever: One of my favorite shorts from Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's a PSA of sorts when a man, when frustrated by repairing the springs in his couch, wishes for the eradication of all Springs. That's when a weird, Elf-ish thing named Coily appears to grant him his wish. Since this is 1950's America, the man finds stuff like his door, his car, his rotary telephone, and his Anti-Commie Spring Gun all cease to work due to "NO SPRINGS!" as taunted by Coily in that weird, squeakish voice of his. I'm pretty sure he was voiced by Mel Blanc.

After the man realizes the mistake he made, he wishes that his first wish be taken back, and Coily begrudgedly agrees. You'd think that was the end, but the short continues for another five minutes!! (I'm not making it up, watch it here). "Shouldn't this be over?" questions Servo about five and a half minutes in.

So ecstatic that he's learned his lesson, the man explains The Wonders of Springs™ to his friends during a Golf game. Unfortunately, everyone is so annoyed by him, they're even more annoyed by that fact that since he drove their carpool, they couldn't leave him at the golf course to be alone with Coily forever.

This short (and others like it) most likely inspired the awesome "World Without Zinc" film on the Simpsons. (Geek time: it was the episode "Bart The Lover")

Atlantic City: Yes, New Jersey's answer to Vegas...I've never been there. I always wanted to go there, but I hadn't been old enough to enjoy it to its full advantage. But now I am, and from years of hearing offhand experiences and all the stuff to see there, I actually want to venture there to try the slots, saltwater some taffy, and enjoy the Boardwalk. I may need to append my "To-Do List For Summer" for this.

Alton Brown: For the 8 people who read this and don't know who he is, he is this Down-to-Earth Nerd personality on the Food Network who brings a side of Entertaining, Intelligent, Knowledgeable Geekiness to anything relating to food. Name any kind of culinary object, and he'll tell you what it's scientific name is, different ways of how it can be cooked or used in cooking, what to cook it with, what kind of drink, utensil and cheese to have with it, who invented/discovered it, ten local places to buy it, what elements make it up, how to react to it in a sexual encounter with it, and at least 5 ways he can use said object to kill you. All while being witty and humorous without having to resort to any monosyllabic catchphrases for no good reason.

Hosting shows like Good Eats (where he describes in detail all of the items I said in the above paragraph on a specific dish squeezed into a half hour), Feasting on Asphalt (travelogue version of "Good Eats" going from location to location while riding a motorcycle), not to mention Iron Chef America, Next Food Network Star, and "Generic Cooking Competition #___," he's one of those rare people that makes any show more awesome & credible by his mere involvement.

He must be seen to be believed, but he's pretty much one of The Most Awesome People Alive. He's Hip! He's Cool! He's 45! But who cares, he's awesome. Thankfully, anyone who ever watched him agrees. I'd hate to say it, but it's a good chance that his Food Network Opposite may be Guy Fieri. (Who is 40, but acts 22. Don't worry, he'll be getting his spot here eventually)

I have a girl friend who once asked me which celebrity I would "go gay for," and while I didn't have an answer at the time, I'd have to say this guy.

AMV's: These are those random youtube videos where people stick random songs over clips of copyrighted material, usually anime, to see how "funny" it would be to have Naruto sing "Numa Numa" or Oscar The Grouch sing "Uncle Fucker" with Elmo. It's quite rare that these videos had actually attempted to sync up the clips with the song itself, and it's even rarer to actually be funny.

Here's a good example of one that I liked that was shown by Bill of VeggieMacabre:



Not particularly the funniest one that I've seen, but it's amusing and pretty inspired to boot. Also, It's Ween, which is great in itself.





"Where does Coily fit in God's plan for us?" ~ Crow T. Robot

Do You Has The Crave?

Hello America (and parts beyond), today I'd like to talk to you about White Castle.



Yes, White Castle, that legendary fast food chain I constantly ramble on about. I can safely say that this is my favorite fast food chain, with Checkers, McDonald's, Wendy's, and ogling at pictures of In & Out pretty much rounding out my Top 5.

The main deal is this: The burgers they have there are small enough so that two of them can fit on an index card, with a juicy taste that is really indescribable in any available synonyms of "delicious." In fact, they're so tiny that you can't just eat one, you pretty much have to eat at least 4 per visit. Hell, they offer the "Crave Case" (30 burgers) and "Crave Crate" (100!) which are gigantic boxes full of meaty goodness usually reserved for parties and the occaisional depressed Nerd needing sustentence for the Dr. Who Marathon. I've split a Crave Case once between myself and two friends, and we got through 24 of them. I took home three, and my friend took home the other three. Needless to say, my share was gone by the end of the day. That's the beauty of the place: you eat 17, then take the rest home to reheat later!

You're not being forced into actual combo meals or anything (even though they offer really crappy ones), so you can just have one single burger. But you'll get strange, insulted looks from the counter ladies if you do. Douche.

These places are mostly confined to the Midwest, but for some strange reason, they're all over NYC and Long Island. I should consider myself lucky. We have "Northern" Chains like White Castle, Checkers and Friendly's in place of Krystal, Rally's (which is the same as Checkers, but a different name), and Stuckey's, respectively. I should point out that Checkers & Rally's aren't Northern/Southern chains, but Eastern/Western ones, but that still doesn't change the fact that the Eastern Counterpart has the better name.

Conversely, Long Island is riddled with ads for Sonic, Jack in The Box, and Dairy Queen despite NOT ONE OF THEM ARE WITHIN TWO FUCKING STATES OF HERE!!!

Before I digress, let me talk to you about "The Crave." No one can really describe what it is, but I firmly believe in its existence. It's this strange sensation in your mind that "I MUST HAVE THAT!" and you'll beat anyone in the face with a hammer if you don't get to it before such an event occurs. It's usually triggered when looking at thei website one day, or looking at pictures of the food. Or just thinking in general. So when I do eat these decadent delights, my "Crave" is satiated until the cycle begins again.

I'm attempting to make this phenomenon my senior thesis. Laugh, but you probably haven't met the Psychology Department at my college, they would think I'm brilliant.

So what do I usually get there?



One of my favorites is what is known as a "Surf & Turf," which is the equivalent of a Double Cheeseburger with a Fish Sandwich patty wedged into the middle. It's pretty much 3 burgers in one. There was this one "miracle" where I had gotten two Fish patties on my Surf & Turf, which was Four in one. I did a happy dance when I found that one. Then promptly slumped in my seat from fullness.

Above you see a glamour shot of said burger, which looks absolutely nothing like the real thing. I even bet those aren't real onions.



Here's what an actual Double Burger looks like in its full glory. Don't be surprised, the picture (well, none of these) isn't mine, they're all random photos at Flickr. Notice that little green thing on top of the top patty? It's a pickle, which many White Castles around here don't use for some reason. Those things on the bottom of the bun? THOSE are the onions. Yum.

Perhaps I don't see pickles because I usually don't order a regular cheeseburger or a Surf & Turf. What I usually get are mutiples of the Jalapeno Cheeseburger.



The burger on top is the Jalapeno. It's basically the same thing as a regular Cheeseburger, except it's 20 cents more expensive and there's a jalapeno flavoring in the cheese. It's all thanks to extract put into the cheese. It's probably the biggest difference between the glamour shot & the real thing: The glamour shot actually has pieces of jalapeno in the cheese. But I'll let these guys slide because I love them so much.

But they offer so much more than these, like fried Clam Strips, Bacon Cheeseburgers, Chicken Rings (both in Side and Sandwich form!), Fried Chicken, delicious little thing that are known as "Fish Nibblers," as well as the various Chicken sandwiches for the people who want to be health conscious, but would still like to know how they earn their nickname "Slyders."



You may think that this group of food is the most disgusting thing imaginable, but I call it "Lunchtime."

Soundtracks For Summer: Land Down Under

Part 3 in my "Soundtracks For Summer" series.

This next song is dedicated to anyone named Bruce:



The first of our Summer songs that's not from the 60's, today we focus on Men At Work's 1981 classic "Land Down Under." Like the other songs I've covered so far, it's a favorite song of mine. Sadly, the song has outlived the band itself. I constantly refer to them as "Men Out of Work." (Ok, lame. Moving on) Nevermind that the song perpetuates some stereotypes that we Yanks have to the Aussies, such as liking Vegemite, speaking a very ridiculous British accent (which you may think is impossible unless you've heard an actual Australian speak), drinking gigantic Fosters cans, giving normal things strange names, and being named Bruce.

A lively tune that reminds me of happy times, like barbeques. This is one such song that would blare on the ol' boom box while grilling some burgers. That fact that most of the video takes place in the desert doesn't hurt its Summer atmosphere one bit, albeit that they experience it during our Winter.

I'm always reminded of the aformentioned stereotypes of the Austrailians whenever I hear this song, especially their portrayals in Monty Python, the Simpsons, and the occaisonal Crocodile Hunter reruns. You'd think you would expect a Koala or some Kangaroo to pop up at any time, and that the Aussies use them for travel.

Once again, I have a work-related story behind this song. I'm currently at CVS, and this song is among the several songs on the muzak, which played during times when it wasn't summer at all. Well, maybe in Australia.

Every once in a while, there's a man that comes in that's full-blown Australian, complete with the gruff accent. Nothing special or different about him, he's a nice guy. One day, when he came up to me on the register, a Men At Work song suddenly started up.

Sadly, it wasn't this one. It was this one:



Coincidentally, what the hell does "Chunder" mean?