We're coming up on the 30-day mark to the release of Star Trek. And things are looking good. A friend of mine - basically hates the franchise. She thinks the whole damn thing is too goofy. I don't blame her; each new incarnation of the Star Trek universe appealed less and less to the general public and more to the ravenous, froth-faced fanboys who need to scale back their geektardedness and set their phasers to "Social Life".
But there is hope. For this person in question, my friend, saw a TV commercial for the film, not realising it was a Star Trek movie, and commented that she wanted to see it. Then she ate humble pie when the title card appeared. So I think Paramount might be smarter than they banked on.
But, there are things about the franchise that need to die. Things which were added to Star Trek after the original series went off the air.
10: Long, drawn out special effects shots.
This is basically true of all movies. Special effects are supposed to enhance what is already pretty good. The moment the magic takes over the material, the interest, especially in the moviegoers of the twenty-first century, dwindles. Space battles and transporters and wide shots of alien planets; okay. Gear up, and let's CGI that shit. But dousing a film in FX, like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, plods and drags the story behind it like a dying horse.
9: Opening credits that waste my time.
Overlay the credits with the beginning of the movie. Something other than a starfield or a swirly thing. Like, oh, I don't know, a sequence of the elder Spock gearing up his magical time machine. ANYTHING.
8: Treknobabble.
Fans eat this stuff for breakfast, but it's time that ODN relays and Pattern buffers be ignored. Wrapping up a plotline by clicking a laser light built into a superfuturistic doodad onto a sheet of plexiglass with a pattern printed on it is shameful at best. Closing anomalies and defeating ominous clouds don't count as quality storytelling either.
7: The fans.
This film should be wired directly to the non-Star Trek audience. I hope to GOD this picture is geared specifically toward normal people. It would be nice to see a normal people Star Trek again. Like the Original Series. It wasn't a fan-based show, since there were no fans yet.
6: Less space, more drama.
The TV show was a drama series set in space. The new shows were space shows with some drama in them. Know the difference.
5: Spock's scanner.
I hope he doesn't look into that awkward glowing bar. Whatever happened to having screens? There are screens all over the set!
4: Need for canon.
Canon is a term created by fanatics and obsessive-compulsives. If the sequel contains a contradictng fact, or if something about this Enterprise or this movie in general doesn't obey the established Star Trek canon, BOO FUCKING HOO. Let's loosen up a little. For Christ's sake, it's a TV show, not the Bible.
3: 47.
This was a running gag on the TV shows since the early 90s. The writers would throw in 47s wherever they could feasibly chuck them. Let's just put that to rest now. It wasn't funny, so it's not a gag.
2: Warp 10.
I don't know why, but I just hate that The Next Generation established that Warp 10 was "Infinite Velocity". Seems like a retarded concept, and it leaves a lot of people tossing untold number of 9s into the Warp 9 factor to make their stories ships go faster.
1: Fanfictions.
Delete them all. Burn them. Poo on them. It was probably well written with a strong arc and convincing dialogue. But it just proves how little you respect the concept of going outside and remembering what natural sunlight is all about.
This message is endorsed by Starfleet, and your mom, who wants you out of her basement now.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
A Face For the Ages
Mascots. Baseball teams have them. Most advertising has some form of mascot hocking products, like Tony the Tiger and the Geico Gecko. But the mascots I'm thinking of came and went as a passing fad. Or so you think.
Mascots are generally a deliberate effort on behalf of companies to create an appealing image for their target demographic. Something their customers can connect to and enjoy, and something that will attract new customers of a similar circle of people. Most mascots are animals - people have a fondness of the cute and cuddly, like the Snuggle detergent teddy bear.
No, these mascots are of a new breed. An avatar that the consumer can more than just watch and enjoy, but interact with and see become heroes. Video game mascots.
Now, the first mascot was created, not by careful demographical research and development, but purely by chance. In 1980, Namco created an arcade game in Japan called Puck Man. Namco licensed out Puck Man for American distribution to Midway. Midway renamed it Pac Man, so vandals couldn't turn "Puck Man" into "Fuck Man".
The game was a hit in America, and catapulted Pac Man's image into the public eye. He became the first mascot completely by accident. Of course, he wasn't considered a mascot of any particular company because it was licensed by Namco to Midway and basically represented the entire video game industry.
Then Nintendo entered the scene with the coin-op Donkey Kong, creating two new mascots, again by accident; Donkey Kong and the game's protagonist, Jumpman. We now know Jumpman as Mario. These two characters were known for their distinctive images, though Donkey Kong's iconic DK tie didn't appear until years later. Mario, on the other hand, hasn't changed much. His plumber's hat (designed because it was too hard to do hair on early arcade machines), moustache (because it was too hard to animate a mouth), and overalls (because the arms could be a different colour than the torso to allow the showing of movement when Mario ran) made him one of the quirkiest video game characters ever developed - even considering what has come since. Time travelling cats, squirrels who could attack foes with their hair, and a bobcat with a ridiculous white turtleneck. An Italian plumber who crossed dimensions into a Mushroom-populated universe where the Lizard King reigned supreme. And he ate mushrooms to grow big, eat "fire flowers" so spit fire, and got a hold of some pixie dust-covered star to feel like he was invicible. So basically the crackhead plumber from Brooklyn won the people's hearts. And I don't see anything wrong with that; Mario has always kept his habits in check.
Sega, struggling with their Master System and its so-called flagship title, Alex Kid, was in need of a mascot that could reach the kids and convince them to choose Sega over Nintendo. Thus was born, Sonic the Hedgehog. Packed full of all the carefully researched attitude and all the chemically formulated kid-friendly anti-establishmentism they could cram him full of, Sonic was a hit. That being, the game was fun to play. If Sonic hadn't been as good as it was, Sega wouldn't have lasted the 16-bit era.
Suddenly, boom. Every game developer and their grandmother had to have a mascot. Something with attitude and pizzazz that could bring their business to the forefront. Unfortunately, some companies didn't have the part down about needing their mascot to have a good game. Bubsy the Bobcat learned that the hard way. Most of the 90s mascots sank like a rock to the bottom of the Whogivesashit Ocean, like Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel and Rocky Rodent. Others had more success like Rayman.
After the Playstation was supplanted by the PS2 and its compatriots, the need for cartoon mascots fell away. Hardware became more powerful, able to render more realistic characters. It's at this point that people began to see mascots as a fad that's come to an end.
This ain't true. Companies still create characters that appeal to audiences and players with enough power to launch them into mascot status. Mario and Sonic are still around, Rayman and Bomberman still have games on the market and new arrivals to the mascot world include Halo's Master Chief, Metal Gear Solid's Solid Snake, and Tomb Raider's Lara Croft. So mascots aren't gone. They've just changed with the times. Long live the mascot!
Mascots are generally a deliberate effort on behalf of companies to create an appealing image for their target demographic. Something their customers can connect to and enjoy, and something that will attract new customers of a similar circle of people. Most mascots are animals - people have a fondness of the cute and cuddly, like the Snuggle detergent teddy bear.
No, these mascots are of a new breed. An avatar that the consumer can more than just watch and enjoy, but interact with and see become heroes. Video game mascots.
Now, the first mascot was created, not by careful demographical research and development, but purely by chance. In 1980, Namco created an arcade game in Japan called Puck Man. Namco licensed out Puck Man for American distribution to Midway. Midway renamed it Pac Man, so vandals couldn't turn "Puck Man" into "Fuck Man".
The game was a hit in America, and catapulted Pac Man's image into the public eye. He became the first mascot completely by accident. Of course, he wasn't considered a mascot of any particular company because it was licensed by Namco to Midway and basically represented the entire video game industry.
Then Nintendo entered the scene with the coin-op Donkey Kong, creating two new mascots, again by accident; Donkey Kong and the game's protagonist, Jumpman. We now know Jumpman as Mario. These two characters were known for their distinctive images, though Donkey Kong's iconic DK tie didn't appear until years later. Mario, on the other hand, hasn't changed much. His plumber's hat (designed because it was too hard to do hair on early arcade machines), moustache (because it was too hard to animate a mouth), and overalls (because the arms could be a different colour than the torso to allow the showing of movement when Mario ran) made him one of the quirkiest video game characters ever developed - even considering what has come since. Time travelling cats, squirrels who could attack foes with their hair, and a bobcat with a ridiculous white turtleneck. An Italian plumber who crossed dimensions into a Mushroom-populated universe where the Lizard King reigned supreme. And he ate mushrooms to grow big, eat "fire flowers" so spit fire, and got a hold of some pixie dust-covered star to feel like he was invicible. So basically the crackhead plumber from Brooklyn won the people's hearts. And I don't see anything wrong with that; Mario has always kept his habits in check.
Sega, struggling with their Master System and its so-called flagship title, Alex Kid, was in need of a mascot that could reach the kids and convince them to choose Sega over Nintendo. Thus was born, Sonic the Hedgehog. Packed full of all the carefully researched attitude and all the chemically formulated kid-friendly anti-establishmentism they could cram him full of, Sonic was a hit. That being, the game was fun to play. If Sonic hadn't been as good as it was, Sega wouldn't have lasted the 16-bit era.
Suddenly, boom. Every game developer and their grandmother had to have a mascot. Something with attitude and pizzazz that could bring their business to the forefront. Unfortunately, some companies didn't have the part down about needing their mascot to have a good game. Bubsy the Bobcat learned that the hard way. Most of the 90s mascots sank like a rock to the bottom of the Whogivesashit Ocean, like Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel and Rocky Rodent. Others had more success like Rayman.
After the Playstation was supplanted by the PS2 and its compatriots, the need for cartoon mascots fell away. Hardware became more powerful, able to render more realistic characters. It's at this point that people began to see mascots as a fad that's come to an end.
This ain't true. Companies still create characters that appeal to audiences and players with enough power to launch them into mascot status. Mario and Sonic are still around, Rayman and Bomberman still have games on the market and new arrivals to the mascot world include Halo's Master Chief, Metal Gear Solid's Solid Snake, and Tomb Raider's Lara Croft. So mascots aren't gone. They've just changed with the times. Long live the mascot!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Time to Go
Population aging is a serious problem in the making all across the world. And guess what! A lot of them are old enough to retire. It's going to happen. Give it a few years. So we ought to have some new jobs.
My problem is this; where the hell are we going to put all these old people? I mean, sure; they won a couple of wars and kept Communism off our doorstep. And they invented thousands of things we take for granted like microwave ovens, TV sets and peeing off the balcony. They also invented the atom bomb and Sonny & Cher, so that makes us even.
Oh yeah, and they stuck us with a multi-billion dollar government deficit that we'll be paying for until we retire. They pumped our parents' heads full of so much religious, traditionalist bullshit that our generation were mostly, miraculously immune to. They gave our folks names like Gary and Leonard. Any first name with an O in it has roots in pure Nazi evil.
And when's the last time you were listening to an old fud talking? Do you even remember the middle of the conversation? The beginning is, "Back in *my* day, we didn't have..." and ends with, "...and that's how we won the war with eight toothpicks and a dead Kraut."
And am I the only one convinced that the old people are just too far behind the cultural curb to be useful? I was asked by a 60+ at the library how the computer mouse worked, and whether or not it would get him on the Internet. I was polite and everything. My laughing at him was very cordial. And I meant "moron" in the nicest sense.
Old people are just a drain on resources, like the ever-valuable recliner and television. Yes, I have heard of PBS. And no, the life cycle of the butterfly is not on the top of my viewing list. Do the monarchs explode? Do the pupae pack Uzis and do drive-bys on some unsuspecting gang of Crips? Fuck no. BORING.
I think we need to put Hollywood to use and take a hint from the movies. Kill the oldies off at 60 and be done with it. We're going to be paying for them until they decide it's time and hide in the closet until they starve. A lot of people confuse that behaviour with cats. Trust me. All cats do is throw their canes at the TV set and swing brooms at the neighbours' kids, then die of liver failure from their decades of unwitting abuse of red meat and single malt whiskey.
Unfortunately, we are going to have a hell of a time weeding these passé persons out of our progressive society. Our politicians are all older than the buildings they mumble at each other. Most of them are clinically dead, anyway. I say we knock those buildings down with them still inside and erect a memorial theme park.
There are a few people who must be spared. Jews should live as long as possible. Once they aren't understandable anymore - okay, pack your spiritual bags and get ready for the car trip that's too hot with the windows up to the sky. Until then, free run of the old people business. Then again, I'm a big fan of cigars, small hats, and complaining. So maybe I'm biased.
The ones that need to go are the ones that can't tell that the Control key is labelled in shorthand on the keyboard. Or the ones that have to turn the volume on ANYWAY up to a million at 4 in the afternoon, but pound on the wall because they can hear you taking your socks off. Or the ones that take two hundred dollars in medication just to stave off death for another four hours. Any of them that have had a failed organ replaced. And any ones that spend more than an hour sitting on a bench (again, Jews excepted).
Now, I have a lot of work to do. I'm 23, and I intend to make my next 37 years worth my effort. I don't want to be one of the ones being dragged off kicking and screaming to the neutralization chamber, crying to God, "I never got to pet the toes of a Swedish hooker! If I only had one more day!!!"
My problem is this; where the hell are we going to put all these old people? I mean, sure; they won a couple of wars and kept Communism off our doorstep. And they invented thousands of things we take for granted like microwave ovens, TV sets and peeing off the balcony. They also invented the atom bomb and Sonny & Cher, so that makes us even.
Oh yeah, and they stuck us with a multi-billion dollar government deficit that we'll be paying for until we retire. They pumped our parents' heads full of so much religious, traditionalist bullshit that our generation were mostly, miraculously immune to. They gave our folks names like Gary and Leonard. Any first name with an O in it has roots in pure Nazi evil.
And when's the last time you were listening to an old fud talking? Do you even remember the middle of the conversation? The beginning is, "Back in *my* day, we didn't have..." and ends with, "...and that's how we won the war with eight toothpicks and a dead Kraut."
And am I the only one convinced that the old people are just too far behind the cultural curb to be useful? I was asked by a 60+ at the library how the computer mouse worked, and whether or not it would get him on the Internet. I was polite and everything. My laughing at him was very cordial. And I meant "moron" in the nicest sense.
Old people are just a drain on resources, like the ever-valuable recliner and television. Yes, I have heard of PBS. And no, the life cycle of the butterfly is not on the top of my viewing list. Do the monarchs explode? Do the pupae pack Uzis and do drive-bys on some unsuspecting gang of Crips? Fuck no. BORING.
I think we need to put Hollywood to use and take a hint from the movies. Kill the oldies off at 60 and be done with it. We're going to be paying for them until they decide it's time and hide in the closet until they starve. A lot of people confuse that behaviour with cats. Trust me. All cats do is throw their canes at the TV set and swing brooms at the neighbours' kids, then die of liver failure from their decades of unwitting abuse of red meat and single malt whiskey.
Unfortunately, we are going to have a hell of a time weeding these passé persons out of our progressive society. Our politicians are all older than the buildings they mumble at each other. Most of them are clinically dead, anyway. I say we knock those buildings down with them still inside and erect a memorial theme park.
There are a few people who must be spared. Jews should live as long as possible. Once they aren't understandable anymore - okay, pack your spiritual bags and get ready for the car trip that's too hot with the windows up to the sky. Until then, free run of the old people business. Then again, I'm a big fan of cigars, small hats, and complaining. So maybe I'm biased.
The ones that need to go are the ones that can't tell that the Control key is labelled in shorthand on the keyboard. Or the ones that have to turn the volume on ANYWAY up to a million at 4 in the afternoon, but pound on the wall because they can hear you taking your socks off. Or the ones that take two hundred dollars in medication just to stave off death for another four hours. Any of them that have had a failed organ replaced. And any ones that spend more than an hour sitting on a bench (again, Jews excepted).
Now, I have a lot of work to do. I'm 23, and I intend to make my next 37 years worth my effort. I don't want to be one of the ones being dragged off kicking and screaming to the neutralization chamber, crying to God, "I never got to pet the toes of a Swedish hooker! If I only had one more day!!!"
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Uwe Hustle
I'm starting to think I should just change the name of this blog to "The Underscore's Uwe Boll Rant Corner", because I do spend a lot of time ragging on him. And to be honest, he does make it easy. But this time, I think I have found a comfortable middle.
Really, I still think his movies are giant steaming piles of shit. But as far as people calling him the Anti-Christ... that might be pushing it. A little.
He started with House of the Dead, which suffered from poor camerawork and video quality, sound, acting and special effects. Oh, and the story was abysmal. The game focused on shooting zombies and panic and some small cobblestone-paved town. The movie was such a radical departure, including a rave and a bunch of scantily-clad teens using automatic weapons on a horde of the poorly dressed dead. The departure was so extreme, the only way to tell it was based on the game was by the in-game footage jammed in a regular intervals. Let me add: House of the Dead was not a very realistic looking game.
Until Alone in the Dark, Uwe Boll was just a director who made a bad video game movie. He was nothing special. Most video game films at that point were watchable at best. (I loved Super Mario Bros. The Movie - I'm weird like that.) The 20 million-dollar movie earned him a spot on the bad director list shared by William Shatner and the Wachowski Brothers. Most of the money went to the main stars, the aging Christian Slater, and the criminally useless Tara Reid. Little would have been left for CGI. And that really shows. The film is unbearable.
BloodyRayne continued this trend. Not much I need to say about this; it's the same old story. Everything that could have been wrong with it, was.
And all through the matter, he was a confident son of a bitch. To the point of being an asshole, he believed in the wonder that was himself. The best way to describing him is egotistical to a fault. And if his movies were even just barely decent, he'd have a better sell to his audience. Think of it. Arnold Schwarzennegger was a terrible actor! But his presence was so strong, and his movies were better than decent - directors just kept snapping him up for the next big action film. Unfortunately, Uwe Boll follows his directorial brethren, Edward D Wood Jr. Ed Wood loved filmmaking, promoted himself as the next big thing, but was sadly not very good at actually doing films. And had a rough time finding financing for his pictures.
Ed Wood was the worst director of the Golden Age not because he was an optimistic moron or a fuckup. Uwe Boll is not the worst director of the Internet Generation because he is an egotistical asshole or a shameless self-promoter. These qualities just make their failed work more obvious.
Really, I still think his movies are giant steaming piles of shit. But as far as people calling him the Anti-Christ... that might be pushing it. A little.
He started with House of the Dead, which suffered from poor camerawork and video quality, sound, acting and special effects. Oh, and the story was abysmal. The game focused on shooting zombies and panic and some small cobblestone-paved town. The movie was such a radical departure, including a rave and a bunch of scantily-clad teens using automatic weapons on a horde of the poorly dressed dead. The departure was so extreme, the only way to tell it was based on the game was by the in-game footage jammed in a regular intervals. Let me add: House of the Dead was not a very realistic looking game.
Until Alone in the Dark, Uwe Boll was just a director who made a bad video game movie. He was nothing special. Most video game films at that point were watchable at best. (I loved Super Mario Bros. The Movie - I'm weird like that.) The 20 million-dollar movie earned him a spot on the bad director list shared by William Shatner and the Wachowski Brothers. Most of the money went to the main stars, the aging Christian Slater, and the criminally useless Tara Reid. Little would have been left for CGI. And that really shows. The film is unbearable.
BloodyRayne continued this trend. Not much I need to say about this; it's the same old story. Everything that could have been wrong with it, was.
And all through the matter, he was a confident son of a bitch. To the point of being an asshole, he believed in the wonder that was himself. The best way to describing him is egotistical to a fault. And if his movies were even just barely decent, he'd have a better sell to his audience. Think of it. Arnold Schwarzennegger was a terrible actor! But his presence was so strong, and his movies were better than decent - directors just kept snapping him up for the next big action film. Unfortunately, Uwe Boll follows his directorial brethren, Edward D Wood Jr. Ed Wood loved filmmaking, promoted himself as the next big thing, but was sadly not very good at actually doing films. And had a rough time finding financing for his pictures.
Ed Wood was the worst director of the Golden Age not because he was an optimistic moron or a fuckup. Uwe Boll is not the worst director of the Internet Generation because he is an egotistical asshole or a shameless self-promoter. These qualities just make their failed work more obvious.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Colmes-Free Since 2009
So, I watched the Colbert Report on the Comedy Network at like, 2 o'clock this morning. He did this awesome interview with Paul McCartney. Called him out when McCartney said the Dalai Lama would eat human flesh if he had to survive. Maybe it was beef. But it sounded like he accused the leader of Tibet and its spiritual values of potential cannibalism. And that was funny shit.
But it got better, because at the end of the show, Colbert called to his viewers to phone in comments about these "deniers of the Holocaust" and tell their feelings. He posted a phone number, 1 877 SEAN 930.
Naturally, my friend and I were intrigued. We snapped up my cell phone and dialed. I thought it was 1 800, but I was reminded otherwise, so we dialed the number and couldn't get through. We couldn't place the call from Canada. So it was an American number. And I thought, "Could the 1 800 get us through? Hell, can't hurt to try."
The number connected to some weird manufacturing business with an answering machine that included this in their message.
"If you are trying to reach the Sean Hannity Radio Show, hang up and redial the number with the 1 877 prefix."
HOLEE SHIT.
We were laughing for a while. I did some research. And I'm glad Alan Colmes left that show. Hannity is such a cocksucker. At least Colmes had enough of a sense of humour about himself to do Steven Colbert's first episode of '09.
But it got better, because at the end of the show, Colbert called to his viewers to phone in comments about these "deniers of the Holocaust" and tell their feelings. He posted a phone number, 1 877 SEAN 930.
Naturally, my friend and I were intrigued. We snapped up my cell phone and dialed. I thought it was 1 800, but I was reminded otherwise, so we dialed the number and couldn't get through. We couldn't place the call from Canada. So it was an American number. And I thought, "Could the 1 800 get us through? Hell, can't hurt to try."
The number connected to some weird manufacturing business with an answering machine that included this in their message.
"If you are trying to reach the Sean Hannity Radio Show, hang up and redial the number with the 1 877 prefix."
HOLEE SHIT.
We were laughing for a while. I did some research. And I'm glad Alan Colmes left that show. Hannity is such a cocksucker. At least Colmes had enough of a sense of humour about himself to do Steven Colbert's first episode of '09.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
My Life as a Gamer
Video games and I share a bit of history. I have sampled every system active in my lifetime. I've witnessed five console generations, owned fifteen systems (not counting the PC and Mac platforms). I've played hundred of games in my lifetime, and put tens of thousands of hours into playing (2000 into World of Warcraft for the PC alone). My first system was the Nintendo.
It belonged to the whole family, but after collecting dust under the basement stairs, I basically just assumed control of the system and hogged it. I started off with just Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. Eventually I got Tetris, Tengen's RBI Baseball, Vindicator and Gauntlet (you know, the ones that came in the black casings because they weren't authentic Nintendo games and lacked the "Seal of Quality", since Atari stole Nintendo's 10NES piracy lockout code from the Copyright Office at the end of the 80s), Mega Man IV (my second favourite title I owned for the system), Total Recall (what a drag), and my story-to-tell game, Chrysalis.
I did not see this game coming at all. Never heard of it, never seen it before. But I read about it in a magazine on day about retro games that deserved way more praise than they actually got. And not a week later, after being diagnosed with a genetic disorder, did I *find* a copy in a used electronics shop! I scooped this bad boy up for fifteen bucks and spent the summer of my sixteenth birthday playing Chrysalis. I had it beaten in less than a week of playing. (I spent some time on Mega Man IV and composing short stories. Yeah, I played some Total Recall, just to see if it improved on the later levels. I'll be honest; it got worse.) Basically, Chrysalis has you playing a guy who stumbles out of a chamber in a cave, where you'd been in stasis for a really long time and you're destined to be a great hero and you have to defeat the Draygonian Empire to save humanity from extinction. It was a fairly mature storyline, even though it was the same sword and sorcery game, same for a few marked differences. It meshed Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, even though the two should probably never meet in a bar. Honestly, it was pretty fucking sweet. I spent most of my time in the field levelling, only to find that the level cap was 16 - so that was a tad disappointing. But what the fuck, right? By now I have two of the swords and I go to find the other two to combine and form the titular weapon, "Crystalis". I don't recalling having that much fun with a Nintendo NES title before or since.
My second system was a Game Boy - which became over time a Game Boy Pocket, a Virtual Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and a DS for a few months. I've owned them all. I have the spots in my eyes to prove I was a V-Boy player. I played Tetris on the old hulking Boy, Pokemon on the Pocket, Mario Deluxe on the Color, and Advance Wars on the GBA. It was the New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, but I honestly can't give an opinion of the game. I played it through. I beat it. But I really don't know if I like it or not. It's one of those entries in the Mario series where, you just think they tried to make it a flagship title on purpose. Super Mario Bros. was a fluke. Not intended to lead Nintendo. It did anyway and when the SNES launched, they ended up making Mario World on purpose to be the biggest game they could make in a reasonable amount of time. From there, Mario 64 wound up commanding the charge with the 64 in battle against the PlayStation, but then when Maro debuted on the Cube, it was kind of a letdown. Like someone at Nintendo thought that Mario had to be new and shiny and different for his showing. And it didn't really work. Kinda like on the DS. It sorta goes back to the roots of the classic sidescrollers, but the level design just doesn't have that classic mentality.
Anyway, I played Tetris for about three hours a day and by the time the Tetris cart vanished for some ungodly reason, I was able to get as far as Level 24, with a score off the charts (I cannot remember if the score meter crapped out at 100 000 or a million, but I did crap it out).
After that, I had a Super Nintendo. I played Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Mario World, and UN Squadron. That was some fun times. Except UN Squadron. As awesome as it was, it instilled copious amounts of rage on part of it being the HARDEST GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED. I've seen axe-wielding maniacs give more quarter than this game. It's so hard! I never got off the first map! Is there even a second map?!
Anyway. The N64 didn't arrive at my house until much later. In the meantime, I got a PlayStation for my 18th birthday. The new one too. PSOne, with the tiny profile and kitchen appliance-white colour. It was pretty damned cool. I got to play all the PS titles I missed. I got to finish Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII, which until that point I was just tinkering with at my buddy's house in between sessions of GoldenEye or Perfect Dark (oh, Perfect Dark. So much cake that first night. So much multiplayer. I was sick from a sugar high and an all-nighter.) I got to work on Chrono Cross, an excellent entry, highly worthy of its Trigger-happy progenitor, and a lot of... other titles. Legend of Dragoon. Too little, too late, SCEA. Really. Three and a half years after FFVII and your character models still look like they were made with fifty polygons? Why could I see the seams on that one dude's cape? They weren't even seams, it was like his cape was literally, three squares loosely tied together with fishing line. Chibi in-game characters and technical FMV sequences don't mesh! That's the part I *didn't* like about FFVII! So yeah, between the bad graphics, the lousy battle system... I really didn't pay much attention to the story line. I don't even know what happened in the game - I completely forgot it all. I got to Disc 3 and gave up. I couldn't take any more. I just went back to one of my all time faves; Final Fantasy Tactics. Classic example of how it doesn't have to be Super3D with all this advanced graphic mumbo bullshit. They did half the game with 2D, and the other half with a fucking awesome story! And another half with a beautiful Turn-based system we use for D&D. Not that I ever played D&D. Well, I did. Once. The DM was a douche bag. *Paul*.
I went from Resident Evil, to RE 2, to RE 3. I got into zombie games because of Capcom's work and still am highly impressed by their productions. The original was so laughable, but for the time, was still fucking scary. I actually wouldn't touch the game after my first play at my buddy's place in the eighth grade because he guided me to the spot with the zombie in the closet and spooked the shit out of me.
Speaking of Scary, the title that carried the PlayStation between releases was always Silent Hill. When Final Fantasy VII lost its steam in sales, Sillent Hill was fifty bucks. RE 2 gave way to RE3, Silent Hill was fifty bucks. The PSOne took over for the original model in the stores - fifty bucks was still on the price tag. It took another two years before the stores would reduce the price. Mainly because copies were never traded in and never really stayed unsold for a long time. I had a copy until my friend's modchipped PlayStation cracked the inside of the disc. It was good while it lasted. I have it pirated now. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
It was about this time, in high school, that my family acquired a computer. An AMD PC, specifically. And my first PC games to play at home. I was no stranger to PC titles - I had played Starcraft, Midnight Rescue, Operation: Neptune, and Doom. But those were all, by twenty-first century standards, almost archaic (only Starcraft was relatively new at the time). So I got Half Life, Unreal Tournament, and Sim City 2000 - three games everyone has. And things were good. I was good at them... mostly. Sim City was never my forte. Even though I really loved it. Had to get my own machine to play them, though. The family computer was defined as a machine intended only for family stuff. No filling the drive with games and shit! Okay, fine. Done. Got an Intel PII system for myself and chalked it full of games and music. One game my folks got me that I refused to install on my machine was Star Trek: Hidden Evil. It's the one that follows the events of Star Trek: Insurrection, and you play a Vulcan officer commanded to investigate the Ba'ku planet during an archaeological dig with the help of Commander Data and Captain Picard.
Now, I like Star Trek. I try to like Star Trek stuff when people say it's bad. I try harder the more they bash it. But this one just defeated my sense of denial. It really was that bad. Too this day, the only machine that's ever read the disc is the old family machine.
So we're in 2004 now. I've gotten my own PS2, a Cube, and toyed with the XBOX. Hated it. EB Games sold me three broken machines. Got sick of dealing with it. Resident Evil 4, the GTA series, so many untold titles. I couldn't list them all off here. But in five years I played the Metal Gear Solid series, the Resident Evil series, the Silent Hill series, the GTA franchise, some Diablo II, Twisted Metal games, Vagrant Story, Gran Turismo 3 and 4, Shadow of Colossus, and about fifty other games that sucked huge donkey cock.
Two years ago, my buddy, Mister Oolau, got me hooked on World of Warcraft. And I have spent about 2000 hours on it, like I said earlier. 82 days of login time. I have uncovered the entire map of all four continents. I've almost hit level 80 (the most recent level cap) as of this writing, and spend most of my time running around, chatting while I whack shit on the head. Standard gaming fare.
And now that I have an XBOX360, I've played GTAIV, Oblivion, Condemned, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Fallout 3, Call of Duty 4, Stranglehold, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, and some odd more titles - I can't recall them all at this retarded hour of the morning.
With that in mind, I'll wrap this up.
Games have been a part of my life. A mainstay in my sociological existence. Games have helped define me and have provided me with heroes I simply coudn't find elsewhere. I'm glad they're here. I'm glad they're staying.
Cheers.
It belonged to the whole family, but after collecting dust under the basement stairs, I basically just assumed control of the system and hogged it. I started off with just Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. Eventually I got Tetris, Tengen's RBI Baseball, Vindicator and Gauntlet (you know, the ones that came in the black casings because they weren't authentic Nintendo games and lacked the "Seal of Quality", since Atari stole Nintendo's 10NES piracy lockout code from the Copyright Office at the end of the 80s), Mega Man IV (my second favourite title I owned for the system), Total Recall (what a drag), and my story-to-tell game, Chrysalis.
I did not see this game coming at all. Never heard of it, never seen it before. But I read about it in a magazine on day about retro games that deserved way more praise than they actually got. And not a week later, after being diagnosed with a genetic disorder, did I *find* a copy in a used electronics shop! I scooped this bad boy up for fifteen bucks and spent the summer of my sixteenth birthday playing Chrysalis. I had it beaten in less than a week of playing. (I spent some time on Mega Man IV and composing short stories. Yeah, I played some Total Recall, just to see if it improved on the later levels. I'll be honest; it got worse.) Basically, Chrysalis has you playing a guy who stumbles out of a chamber in a cave, where you'd been in stasis for a really long time and you're destined to be a great hero and you have to defeat the Draygonian Empire to save humanity from extinction. It was a fairly mature storyline, even though it was the same sword and sorcery game, same for a few marked differences. It meshed Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, even though the two should probably never meet in a bar. Honestly, it was pretty fucking sweet. I spent most of my time in the field levelling, only to find that the level cap was 16 - so that was a tad disappointing. But what the fuck, right? By now I have two of the swords and I go to find the other two to combine and form the titular weapon, "Crystalis". I don't recalling having that much fun with a Nintendo NES title before or since.
My second system was a Game Boy - which became over time a Game Boy Pocket, a Virtual Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and a DS for a few months. I've owned them all. I have the spots in my eyes to prove I was a V-Boy player. I played Tetris on the old hulking Boy, Pokemon on the Pocket, Mario Deluxe on the Color, and Advance Wars on the GBA. It was the New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, but I honestly can't give an opinion of the game. I played it through. I beat it. But I really don't know if I like it or not. It's one of those entries in the Mario series where, you just think they tried to make it a flagship title on purpose. Super Mario Bros. was a fluke. Not intended to lead Nintendo. It did anyway and when the SNES launched, they ended up making Mario World on purpose to be the biggest game they could make in a reasonable amount of time. From there, Mario 64 wound up commanding the charge with the 64 in battle against the PlayStation, but then when Maro debuted on the Cube, it was kind of a letdown. Like someone at Nintendo thought that Mario had to be new and shiny and different for his showing. And it didn't really work. Kinda like on the DS. It sorta goes back to the roots of the classic sidescrollers, but the level design just doesn't have that classic mentality.
Anyway, I played Tetris for about three hours a day and by the time the Tetris cart vanished for some ungodly reason, I was able to get as far as Level 24, with a score off the charts (I cannot remember if the score meter crapped out at 100 000 or a million, but I did crap it out).
After that, I had a Super Nintendo. I played Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Mario World, and UN Squadron. That was some fun times. Except UN Squadron. As awesome as it was, it instilled copious amounts of rage on part of it being the HARDEST GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED. I've seen axe-wielding maniacs give more quarter than this game. It's so hard! I never got off the first map! Is there even a second map?!
Anyway. The N64 didn't arrive at my house until much later. In the meantime, I got a PlayStation for my 18th birthday. The new one too. PSOne, with the tiny profile and kitchen appliance-white colour. It was pretty damned cool. I got to play all the PS titles I missed. I got to finish Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII, which until that point I was just tinkering with at my buddy's house in between sessions of GoldenEye or Perfect Dark (oh, Perfect Dark. So much cake that first night. So much multiplayer. I was sick from a sugar high and an all-nighter.) I got to work on Chrono Cross, an excellent entry, highly worthy of its Trigger-happy progenitor, and a lot of... other titles. Legend of Dragoon. Too little, too late, SCEA. Really. Three and a half years after FFVII and your character models still look like they were made with fifty polygons? Why could I see the seams on that one dude's cape? They weren't even seams, it was like his cape was literally, three squares loosely tied together with fishing line. Chibi in-game characters and technical FMV sequences don't mesh! That's the part I *didn't* like about FFVII! So yeah, between the bad graphics, the lousy battle system... I really didn't pay much attention to the story line. I don't even know what happened in the game - I completely forgot it all. I got to Disc 3 and gave up. I couldn't take any more. I just went back to one of my all time faves; Final Fantasy Tactics. Classic example of how it doesn't have to be Super3D with all this advanced graphic mumbo bullshit. They did half the game with 2D, and the other half with a fucking awesome story! And another half with a beautiful Turn-based system we use for D&D. Not that I ever played D&D. Well, I did. Once. The DM was a douche bag. *Paul*.
I went from Resident Evil, to RE 2, to RE 3. I got into zombie games because of Capcom's work and still am highly impressed by their productions. The original was so laughable, but for the time, was still fucking scary. I actually wouldn't touch the game after my first play at my buddy's place in the eighth grade because he guided me to the spot with the zombie in the closet and spooked the shit out of me.
Speaking of Scary, the title that carried the PlayStation between releases was always Silent Hill. When Final Fantasy VII lost its steam in sales, Sillent Hill was fifty bucks. RE 2 gave way to RE3, Silent Hill was fifty bucks. The PSOne took over for the original model in the stores - fifty bucks was still on the price tag. It took another two years before the stores would reduce the price. Mainly because copies were never traded in and never really stayed unsold for a long time. I had a copy until my friend's modchipped PlayStation cracked the inside of the disc. It was good while it lasted. I have it pirated now. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
It was about this time, in high school, that my family acquired a computer. An AMD PC, specifically. And my first PC games to play at home. I was no stranger to PC titles - I had played Starcraft, Midnight Rescue, Operation: Neptune, and Doom. But those were all, by twenty-first century standards, almost archaic (only Starcraft was relatively new at the time). So I got Half Life, Unreal Tournament, and Sim City 2000 - three games everyone has. And things were good. I was good at them... mostly. Sim City was never my forte. Even though I really loved it. Had to get my own machine to play them, though. The family computer was defined as a machine intended only for family stuff. No filling the drive with games and shit! Okay, fine. Done. Got an Intel PII system for myself and chalked it full of games and music. One game my folks got me that I refused to install on my machine was Star Trek: Hidden Evil. It's the one that follows the events of Star Trek: Insurrection, and you play a Vulcan officer commanded to investigate the Ba'ku planet during an archaeological dig with the help of Commander Data and Captain Picard.
Now, I like Star Trek. I try to like Star Trek stuff when people say it's bad. I try harder the more they bash it. But this one just defeated my sense of denial. It really was that bad. Too this day, the only machine that's ever read the disc is the old family machine.
So we're in 2004 now. I've gotten my own PS2, a Cube, and toyed with the XBOX. Hated it. EB Games sold me three broken machines. Got sick of dealing with it. Resident Evil 4, the GTA series, so many untold titles. I couldn't list them all off here. But in five years I played the Metal Gear Solid series, the Resident Evil series, the Silent Hill series, the GTA franchise, some Diablo II, Twisted Metal games, Vagrant Story, Gran Turismo 3 and 4, Shadow of Colossus, and about fifty other games that sucked huge donkey cock.
Two years ago, my buddy, Mister Oolau, got me hooked on World of Warcraft. And I have spent about 2000 hours on it, like I said earlier. 82 days of login time. I have uncovered the entire map of all four continents. I've almost hit level 80 (the most recent level cap) as of this writing, and spend most of my time running around, chatting while I whack shit on the head. Standard gaming fare.
And now that I have an XBOX360, I've played GTAIV, Oblivion, Condemned, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Fallout 3, Call of Duty 4, Stranglehold, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, and some odd more titles - I can't recall them all at this retarded hour of the morning.
With that in mind, I'll wrap this up.
Games have been a part of my life. A mainstay in my sociological existence. Games have helped define me and have provided me with heroes I simply coudn't find elsewhere. I'm glad they're here. I'm glad they're staying.
Cheers.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
2008: A Disrespectful Look at the Year Good Fortune Forgot
It's only the wee hours of the third day of 2009 and I'm already basking in my shiny new year's wonder - despite being sicker than dogshit. There are so many things I don't miss about the last 366 days. The list is long; it lengthens every time I think about 2008. And even then, I try only remembering last year when I have to try and think about where I put something down last week. And then it all comes oozing back.
2008 was designated by the UN General Assembly to be the International Year of the Planet Earth. And admirable thought when you consider the number of environmental causes they intend to put the fundraising money towards on behalf of Year of the Earth. And yet, last year was also declared the International Year of Languages, of Sanitation, of the Potato. Year of the Potato? What is this, the Chinese calendar on methamphetamines? Are we really expected to take them seriously when they adorn a year with the ugliest vegetable grown on Earth? I mean, yeah, yummy shit. French fries (or *freedom* fries to you political American cultural SADISTS), potato chips (or Potato Crisps to the Brits, who wasted the word Chip on Fries, yet managed not to find a use for the word Fries after that. Shame - we in Normal Person Land call that lack of foresight). But hey. Let's be serious. Potatoes are no belle peppers (See how I did that word play? Bell pepper => Belle of the Ball? Bah. You'll get maybe when your grown up teeth come in).
How did this year start? Oh, I'll tell you. It started with a wail. Oil prices hit a record high right after the New Year. They were up to a Dollar Forty a Litre in Canadian pumps. I think it's like, five bucks a gallon. But whatever about that; I don't deal in outdated measurements. How many hands tall is that horse? Fuck the hand. Fuck the horse. And Fuck you.
2007 wasn't too bad a year for banks, who made an absolute killing with their subprime mortgage scam. But when fate bites you in the ass, you can't turn and bite him back. And because he's still biting you on your ass. Trust me. When fate bites - it's because it's hungry. So in the wonder of 2008, we got to enjoy watching the stock markets take a dive out the global window sill, like so many brokers to follow.
Iran built a space center and launched a rocket. Iran. With a Space Center. Hey, weren't we supposed to blow them up next anyway? Doesn't that just seem like a wasted effort?
I read about this one in the paper in March - they have the article on the internet somewhere - about the US shooting a spy satellite carrying toxic fuel. By launching a missile at it from the ground. This was supposed to be a proud moment for the US Missile Defense System. But they missed one crucial detail. What of the toxic elements of the fuel? What are our guarantees that we didn't spend nine weeks breathing that shit in? The only people who wouldn't notice are Los Angelinos.
Fidel Castro resigned as President of Cuba this year. Probably because he was tired of not being as scary to Americans as Iraq, Korea, the Taliban and Al-Qaida, even coming up behind Igglepiggle in the terror department. I'm sure somewhere, someone fifty years behind the times is crying because he didn't get a chance to blow Castro up with an exploding cigar while he was still.... Kiiiinda important. That actually happened, by the way. Is it that hard to believe that the US goverment spent millions of dollars and came up with more than 600 ways to kill him, most of which were implemented, and he lived to step down as President of 32 years?
The earthquake in China. All over the damned news. What, did we run out of people who died here? You send reporters with TV crews and sandwiches - and all they do is stare at the dying and the needy. While eating those sandwiches. Good. I hope you choked on them. I hope the bread was stale, you fucks.
Ooh, on a nerd note, astronomers found a new supernova remnant. They called it G1.9+0.3 (Yeah, I know. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it...) and determined its age by comparing its rate of expansion. Their guess is that about 25000 years ago, this thing exploded and spent 24860 years languishing before it became observable to anyone on Earth. And about nearly a century and a half, someone noticed it.
Bill Gates quit his job. Went on to charity work. Because, you know, it wasn't enough for him to make a basquillion dollars just owning the place. He actually did shit there (or at least pretended to really convincingly).
Barack Obama begins to fidget like a four year old when he's told he was elected to lead the United States for a four year term. And not because he was excited. He knows what we Canadians know; he's going to get shot. Doing something awesome gets you SHOT. Lincoln freed the slaves and got SHOT. Kennedy laid out the space program to put a man on the moon and got fucking SHOT. Bruce Willis saved all those people at Nakatomi and guess what? He got fucking SHOT. Obama doesn't even have to do anything. Just being the first black President is bound to set someone's clock to Asskicking Hour. They're going to wait eight or nine months, until President Obama feels REAL good about himself. Then he's going to get tapped in the head on his morning jog.
Oh - another nerd note. We found water on Mars! Frozen water!
That's right. Those giant polar ice caps... they're obviously just for show, right?
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, whose remains were found in 1991 (according to my trusty fact resource, Wikipedia) and went unidentified for 17 years, were finally confirmed with DNA analysis. Now, I'm going to assume the Russians went to the trouble of testing the corpse since the news site with the actual article was all in Cyrillic (parlez anglais next time Igor? I'm evidently not cool enough to be down with your bad Russian self), which leads to a simple question. Why are the Russkies even bothering to ID the man who single-handedly killed Russia? I suppose I shouldn't even ask; the Catholic Church matyred him. Does becoming a saint really get that easy now? You can be the biggest asshole the world has ever seen - lead one of the most powerful nations of the early twentieth century right into the ground so far that it would take two major wars and 80 years to dig itself out. Then get arrested and hoisted off the Decision Making Committee and slaughtered along with your family, your doctor and your little house-minions. Mix and let simmer for a few decades and voila! Instant Sainthood. God, if it got easier we'd see some Living Saints before too long.
A leap second was tacked onto 2008 - which was a treat for me. It was SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING to make sure that we kept in perfect check with the rest of the universe that we added one more tick to the clock. 23:59:59, xx:xx:xx, 0:00:00. I bet that upset someone's countdown. "Let Old Ac--- wait, what?"
Roy Schieder (Jaws), Jeff Healey, Gary Gygax (D&D Creator), Arthur C. Clarke (The guy who wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey"), Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes), Stan Winston (Make-up for Jurassic Park, Terminator, Aliens etc), George Carlin, Estelle Getty (Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!), Bernie Mac, Issac Hayes, Don LaFontaine (the guy with the voice of God that did the film trailers back in the day), Paul Newman, Michael Crichton, pin-up model Bettie Page, Majel Barrett (Trekkies will know her as the voice of the Enterprise computer. TrekFAGS will think of Voyager first. Hence the FAG part.), and Eartha Kitt all died this year. Now, all right, Estelle Getty and Paul Newman were written off as dead ten years ago, but Carlin, Stan Winston... Michael Crichton...? I loved his books! I wished he'd stuck around to write a couple more.
Oh - And if the year wasn't fucked up enough - did anyone note the '08 calendar that placed Saint Patrick's Day on the 15th of March? Something called Holy Week, interfered with our right to have an excuse to get fucking hammered together as per the PLAN. Who here as ever worked a Monday Saint Patrick's Day? Ever wanted to walk into the pub and see a hundred silly drunken faces who want to buy you a round? No! Not this year! This year it was a Saturday - a day where everyone was already relaxed and generally ungiving and ungenerous - me more than anyone else, but still!
As for me, I was given the boot by my parents and had to get a place with my friends, lost my hard drive to a major system failure and had to get a new drive - resulting in a serious fall-behind in college which left my marks so low I can't return for my fourth semester, had forty-two calls from creditors wanting their money back since November and last but not least - I've gotten laid once in the last 60 days. But that's a story in and of itself.
This year actually made effort. Effort spent in being so miserable it would set the standard for optimism in the years following (until we get too big for our britches again and get 2008 all over our 2014).
2008, you've certainly earned this.
FUCK YOU. Fuck you in lights. Fuck you in tights. Fuck you from afar. Fuck you in a car. Fuck you after class. Fuck you in the ass. Fuck you and your mother. And your sister and your brother. And your little dog too. Fuck you.
2008 was designated by the UN General Assembly to be the International Year of the Planet Earth. And admirable thought when you consider the number of environmental causes they intend to put the fundraising money towards on behalf of Year of the Earth. And yet, last year was also declared the International Year of Languages, of Sanitation, of the Potato. Year of the Potato? What is this, the Chinese calendar on methamphetamines? Are we really expected to take them seriously when they adorn a year with the ugliest vegetable grown on Earth? I mean, yeah, yummy shit. French fries (or *freedom* fries to you political American cultural SADISTS), potato chips (or Potato Crisps to the Brits, who wasted the word Chip on Fries, yet managed not to find a use for the word Fries after that. Shame - we in Normal Person Land call that lack of foresight). But hey. Let's be serious. Potatoes are no belle peppers (See how I did that word play? Bell pepper => Belle of the Ball? Bah. You'll get maybe when your grown up teeth come in).
How did this year start? Oh, I'll tell you. It started with a wail. Oil prices hit a record high right after the New Year. They were up to a Dollar Forty a Litre in Canadian pumps. I think it's like, five bucks a gallon. But whatever about that; I don't deal in outdated measurements. How many hands tall is that horse? Fuck the hand. Fuck the horse. And Fuck you.
2007 wasn't too bad a year for banks, who made an absolute killing with their subprime mortgage scam. But when fate bites you in the ass, you can't turn and bite him back. And because he's still biting you on your ass. Trust me. When fate bites - it's because it's hungry. So in the wonder of 2008, we got to enjoy watching the stock markets take a dive out the global window sill, like so many brokers to follow.
Iran built a space center and launched a rocket. Iran. With a Space Center. Hey, weren't we supposed to blow them up next anyway? Doesn't that just seem like a wasted effort?
I read about this one in the paper in March - they have the article on the internet somewhere - about the US shooting a spy satellite carrying toxic fuel. By launching a missile at it from the ground. This was supposed to be a proud moment for the US Missile Defense System. But they missed one crucial detail. What of the toxic elements of the fuel? What are our guarantees that we didn't spend nine weeks breathing that shit in? The only people who wouldn't notice are Los Angelinos.
Fidel Castro resigned as President of Cuba this year. Probably because he was tired of not being as scary to Americans as Iraq, Korea, the Taliban and Al-Qaida, even coming up behind Igglepiggle in the terror department. I'm sure somewhere, someone fifty years behind the times is crying because he didn't get a chance to blow Castro up with an exploding cigar while he was still.... Kiiiinda important. That actually happened, by the way. Is it that hard to believe that the US goverment spent millions of dollars and came up with more than 600 ways to kill him, most of which were implemented, and he lived to step down as President of 32 years?
The earthquake in China. All over the damned news. What, did we run out of people who died here? You send reporters with TV crews and sandwiches - and all they do is stare at the dying and the needy. While eating those sandwiches. Good. I hope you choked on them. I hope the bread was stale, you fucks.
Ooh, on a nerd note, astronomers found a new supernova remnant. They called it G1.9+0.3 (Yeah, I know. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it...) and determined its age by comparing its rate of expansion. Their guess is that about 25000 years ago, this thing exploded and spent 24860 years languishing before it became observable to anyone on Earth. And about nearly a century and a half, someone noticed it.
Bill Gates quit his job. Went on to charity work. Because, you know, it wasn't enough for him to make a basquillion dollars just owning the place. He actually did shit there (or at least pretended to really convincingly).
Barack Obama begins to fidget like a four year old when he's told he was elected to lead the United States for a four year term. And not because he was excited. He knows what we Canadians know; he's going to get shot. Doing something awesome gets you SHOT. Lincoln freed the slaves and got SHOT. Kennedy laid out the space program to put a man on the moon and got fucking SHOT. Bruce Willis saved all those people at Nakatomi and guess what? He got fucking SHOT. Obama doesn't even have to do anything. Just being the first black President is bound to set someone's clock to Asskicking Hour. They're going to wait eight or nine months, until President Obama feels REAL good about himself. Then he's going to get tapped in the head on his morning jog.
Oh - another nerd note. We found water on Mars! Frozen water!
That's right. Those giant polar ice caps... they're obviously just for show, right?
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, whose remains were found in 1991 (according to my trusty fact resource, Wikipedia) and went unidentified for 17 years, were finally confirmed with DNA analysis. Now, I'm going to assume the Russians went to the trouble of testing the corpse since the news site with the actual article was all in Cyrillic (parlez anglais next time Igor? I'm evidently not cool enough to be down with your bad Russian self), which leads to a simple question. Why are the Russkies even bothering to ID the man who single-handedly killed Russia? I suppose I shouldn't even ask; the Catholic Church matyred him. Does becoming a saint really get that easy now? You can be the biggest asshole the world has ever seen - lead one of the most powerful nations of the early twentieth century right into the ground so far that it would take two major wars and 80 years to dig itself out. Then get arrested and hoisted off the Decision Making Committee and slaughtered along with your family, your doctor and your little house-minions. Mix and let simmer for a few decades and voila! Instant Sainthood. God, if it got easier we'd see some Living Saints before too long.
A leap second was tacked onto 2008 - which was a treat for me. It was SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING to make sure that we kept in perfect check with the rest of the universe that we added one more tick to the clock. 23:59:59, xx:xx:xx, 0:00:00. I bet that upset someone's countdown. "Let Old Ac--- wait, what?"
Roy Schieder (Jaws), Jeff Healey, Gary Gygax (D&D Creator), Arthur C. Clarke (The guy who wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey"), Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes), Stan Winston (Make-up for Jurassic Park, Terminator, Aliens etc), George Carlin, Estelle Getty (Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!), Bernie Mac, Issac Hayes, Don LaFontaine (the guy with the voice of God that did the film trailers back in the day), Paul Newman, Michael Crichton, pin-up model Bettie Page, Majel Barrett (Trekkies will know her as the voice of the Enterprise computer. TrekFAGS will think of Voyager first. Hence the FAG part.), and Eartha Kitt all died this year. Now, all right, Estelle Getty and Paul Newman were written off as dead ten years ago, but Carlin, Stan Winston... Michael Crichton...? I loved his books! I wished he'd stuck around to write a couple more.
Oh - And if the year wasn't fucked up enough - did anyone note the '08 calendar that placed Saint Patrick's Day on the 15th of March? Something called Holy Week, interfered with our right to have an excuse to get fucking hammered together as per the PLAN. Who here as ever worked a Monday Saint Patrick's Day? Ever wanted to walk into the pub and see a hundred silly drunken faces who want to buy you a round? No! Not this year! This year it was a Saturday - a day where everyone was already relaxed and generally ungiving and ungenerous - me more than anyone else, but still!
As for me, I was given the boot by my parents and had to get a place with my friends, lost my hard drive to a major system failure and had to get a new drive - resulting in a serious fall-behind in college which left my marks so low I can't return for my fourth semester, had forty-two calls from creditors wanting their money back since November and last but not least - I've gotten laid once in the last 60 days. But that's a story in and of itself.
This year actually made effort. Effort spent in being so miserable it would set the standard for optimism in the years following (until we get too big for our britches again and get 2008 all over our 2014).
2008, you've certainly earned this.
FUCK YOU. Fuck you in lights. Fuck you in tights. Fuck you from afar. Fuck you in a car. Fuck you after class. Fuck you in the ass. Fuck you and your mother. And your sister and your brother. And your little dog too. Fuck you.
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