FORT90

- This weekend MK and I had a ton of work to get through, so the plan was for her to finish up some pages for a comic that was past due while I refined and tweaked a game design since development of the game was actually coming along ahead of schedule. But instead, we mostly just sat around and watched the Ben Stiller Show on DVD. Actually, I did get some work done, while MK chose to continue her game of Pikmin that she started a while ago.

Plus we went to a party in Brooklyn last night. My friend Stephy threw a pre/anti-Valentine’s Day bash at her house, though it was mostly an opportunity for friends who are oh-so familiar with my horror stories from the world of dating (among other things) to actually see me with a actual living, breathing, fully-functional (and non-crazy) girlfriend, which as expected, was ten times the thrill for them. Robin also came along for the chance to meet girls and some booze.

It was nice seeing Steph whom I had lost contact with due to the overly hectic past couple of months (her and I go way back, to my WSVA days). Highlights on her end included a “crazy Matt Hawkins story” of her own. BTW, I love it when people have a story about some absurd, bizarre, or even life threatening incident and dub it a “Matt Hawkins story”; Dave has a few, and Steph was even in one of them not too long ago… the time some creep asked me to check out his dead friend with him. Anyway, Steph’s story was about a psycho tenant of hers that was moving out and how he went nutso when she gave back his security deposit minus $10 for some damage he did to some wiring; the guy pulled down his pants, spread his ass cheeks wide, and started yelling about getting raped up the ass (good thing he didn’t start pooing right then and there).

Plus she told me about her latest internet romance: some D&D freak who lives in his parent’s basement somewhere in the mid-west. His name is “Moth Tron”. Awesome. And I swear to God, there is no better joy on earth than asking Steph if her latest love has crab-like claws for hands or tank treads for feet (she has a history of going after dudes with psychical deformities, such as one guy who had a malformed hand and another dud with a lazy eye).

But the true highlight of the party was seeing Raph whom I had also lost contact with and assumed to be living in California. Raph and I share a special bond which was forged on the day of the big black out back in 2003; after walking 50+ sweltering blocks in Brooklyn for any sign of friends, I found him still at his place where he gave me a cold Japanese beer and cooked me a hot dog. Later that night we drove around the city (driving around Brooklyn without traffic lights and much traffic is the only way to go around there), walked around a pitch-black park (while careful not to step on people having sex in the grass), and got drunk. We still say there should be a mandatory black out at least once a year.

There was also plenty of other familiar faces, plus plenty of eats: there was chocolate fondue, but instead of the assorted fruits on-hand, I dipped brownies and Hersey’s kisses. By the end of the night, I had so much chocolate that I was convinced that if I was sick, I’d be throwing up pure fudge. And of course there was plenty of booze, with MK making all my drinks, and all of them stiff.

While most of the action was going on downstairs, MK, Robin, and myself, along with Raph, his girlfriend, and our friend Adam mostly hung out in the “pink room” which was just the bathroom with pink stuff all over the place. Pink champaign was served (pretty digesting actually) and at one point we were all goofing on Def Leopard (I made a really dumb… not tasteless, but just plain retarded… joke about the one armed drummer and Raph, being the kind hearted soul that he is, managed to salvage it somehow). Plus, and I forget how, but I ended doing my old death metal routine from high school. I really wish I could remember more.

By the end of the night I was pretty drunk, but Robin was much more so, and MK was so smashed she could barely walk. But I managed to get her back to my place, though we were too spent to stay up and watch SNL that I had taped in advance (Jason Bateman was on). She couldn’t even stay awake for the Venture Brothers.

- Speaking of the star of Arrested Development, the uncertain future of the show has been pretty big news the past couple of days for most folks (or at least for those who have good taste in television).

Shortly after news of Fox’s decision to shorten the season in favor of the overrated, unfunny, and just plain retarded American Dan hit the net, David Cross went on the Jimmy Kimmel show to talk about the situation. Needless to say, he was pretty pissed, mostly because the network never bothered to contact anyone on the show about the decision. Instead, they all found out about news like everyone else, on the internet.

Cross further said of the Fox network…

“I hope Fox puts in its place, like, you know, America?s Cutest Retards. What?s left for them to do? We got midgets trying to pull an elephant. What?s left? We?ve got orphans trying to figure out who their dads are?come on. Let?s go with retards. OK? Let?s do it”

Meanwhile, Jason Bateman appeared in Conan O’Brien the next night. Even though he didn’t directly address the situation, Bateman did constantly stress that people should watch the show, as did Conan. Plus he talked about wanting to have his sister appear on the show as his wife and sex with his real life wife. Some found the interview to be pretty weird, but I though it was awesome (and like Bateman explained, the show’s all about incest humor).

Then the next day, a letter was released by the president of Fox Entertainment, Gail Berman, and stated…

“… contrary to rumors you may have heard of read on the internet, [Arrested Development] is NOT cancelled.”

And anyone who’s familiar with Fox’s history of stopping production of shows has good reason to cry bullshit. Afterall, even though Fox seems rather cavalier about the show wrapping up this season, all reports seem to indicate that a proper final episode hasn’t been filmed, nor will it be. Given how intricately structured the overall story is planned out (which means that every episode is important in the scheme of things), its impossible to believe that things could have just ended this past week with no complications. But then again, it’s just another sign of Fox not giving a shit.

At the end of the letter, Berman said the show would be on the air for many years to come, so long as ratings were there to justify it, and unfortunately that is the bottom line, Considering the Fox of today really is the cesspool of mindless filth that it’s always been rather unfairly characterized as (such as when Married With Children was its flagship show) but only now does it actually apply, I highly doubt it. Afterall, Americans don’t want smart comedy with talented actors and brilliant scripts, they want to see “real” people, i.e. folks off the streets that are desperate for fifteen seconds of fame or complete been (or soon to be has been) celebrities, acting like spoiled brats and dragging down the entire human race in beach house.

Here’s hoping DVD sales will also help keep the show on the air. I would have to assume they’ve been great thus far; it was a pretty popular gift this past Xmas.

- Speaking of DVDs, a season 1 collection of Pete & Pete has officially been announced. Actually, I’ve known about a Pete & Pete DVD for a while, but didn’t want to say anything due to the fear of spilling the beans, though as I’ve discovered, it’s actually been a really poorly kept secret. Then again, it’s not hard to believe that someone at Nick posts at the Something Awful forums.

- Meanwhile, the biggest news this week video games wise was the announcement of a Sega Saturn-styled pad for the PS2. Ask any Saturn owner and they will tell you that the system has easily one of the finest 2D pads ever (which makes total sense since it was one of the finest 2D systems every). Now I don’t feel too bad for missing out on the USB Saturn pad.

Now I can finally play the Street Fighter Anniversay Collection and Virtau Fighter 4 with some semblance of control.

- Hey, remember the JFK assassination game that was pissing people off not too long ago? Well get ready for a game based on the Oklahoma City bombing.

- Have you heard of the game, the 7 Sins? It’s another one of those games who people who find Sims 2 not sexually satisfying enough. Just check out this video which shows the player drugging up his date, looking up her skirt and playing with her breasts.

- Here’s your bizarro video game tidbit as provided by the GAF of the week: remember the arcade, and Genesis, classic Strider? Some might recall a SuperGrafix version that never came to be in Japan (it was downgraded to a PC Engine Arcade Card CD version that apparently sucked). Well the story goes that management put so much pressure on the long programmer behind SuperGrafix version, which was supposed to surpass not only the Genesis version but the arcade one as well, that he cracked under the stress and had to be admitted to a mental hospital, which lead to the game’s cancellation. And because of his failure, it’s even said that he even took his one life.

Some have even stated that the reason Strider has a teddy bear when he later appeared in Street Fighter Alpha 2 (in Ken’s background), as well as each subsequent appearance, is to act as tribute to the institutionalized programmer.

Neat story, huh? Well according to at least one person, it’s probably bullshit. Personally, I want to believe it.

Now if I can just find out what the deal is with that guy who jumped off the top of Sega HQ during the Saturn/Dreamcast changeover, and the 147 Dead Or Alive fans that committed mass suicide.

- After 3 years in the making, Patrick, aka Transfatty, has finally finished Deep Space Mayonnaise.

- And lastly, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so to celebrate, here are some cards courtesy of X-Entertainment to help spread the message of love via Mario, Link, and the Ninja Turtles…

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- Tonight was the first night of my game design class. Overall, I think it well, considering how crappy I was feeling throughout the day. And making things worse, I was also somewhat nervous up until class-time. Students can make or break any class, but thankfully, everyone tonight seems really cool and decent, so I doubt there will be any foreseeable problems (at least the kind brought on my the “Street Fighter rools, everything else suxors!!! type, which I’m always afraid of getting, and have thus far been luckily free of).

And again, it’s a fairly interesting bunch, which this time includes a doctor and an artist who deals with virtual reality and robots or something similar (I believe she’s also a professor as well).

My primary concern is that I’m not wasting anyone’s money; there’s nothing worse than paying hundreds of dollars for a class, only to have some dumb-ass butcher up a potentially awesome subject matter. I honestly feel like I did a pretty good job my first time out, but I’m still new to the game and there’s always room for improvement. While I am sticking close to what I did during the previous session, I am making changes here and there.

Tonight I mostly just spoke with the class, finding out who they were, what their familiarity and interest levels are with video games, and the such. Perhaps some were turned off with me just questioning them the whole time, though it was completely necessary. I ended the evening with a brief talk about the very first games and even had two student play the first interactive computer game ever, Spacewar!

In addition to have students play a video game in class right off the back, I already have a “field trip” planned for them; I’m taking them to an IGDA event in two weeks. There were initial plans to have a very rough demo of my new game on display, but it’s been nixed. Just as well, I hate rushing on a game.

- Steve was bearer of both good and bad news. First the bad: because of the “success” of American Dad, it’s time-slot come this May when it officially premieres has been bumped up an hour, from 9:30 to 8:30 on Sundays, which is normally occupied by Arrested Development. And because of this, Fox is ordering that show to have it’s season shortened. Jesus Christ, WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

So Fox is basically forcing the funniest, smartest, most original show on television today to “make way” for easily the most idiotic, most derivative, and most importantly, unfunny cartoon in recent memory (and that’s saying a lot when you have shit like Drawn Together on the air), all because it popped a big Nielsen rating. Any idiot knows that anything is going to draw high numbers after the Super Bowl. As I didn’t have enough reasons to despise Fox already. I can’t believe the network would not put their most critically acclaimed show after the game in hopes of boosting its ratings. Yeah, give that slot to the show that’s a piss-poor carbon copy of another show that they didn’t even like in the first place (Family Guy). Also, have that one guy who can’t even do one funny show and give him too. Real smart Fox, real smart.

And the best part is that once the second season is over, Fox will quietly pull the plug, so we can all add it to the ever-growing list of shows that were cancelled purely due to the network’s own incompetence:

Futurama
Firely
Wonderfalls
The Long Gunmen
Millenium
Ben Stiller Show
Get A Life

But what’s the best part? I bet you anything both Family Guy and American Dad will cancelled by this time next year.

Anyway, what was the good news? Nickelodeon is launching the “Rewind Collection” and its first release is Clarrisa Explains It All. But the real good news is that we might finally see DVD releases of classics like Pete & Pete, Salute Your Shorts, and You Can’t Do That On Television! On can only hope…

– On Yay Hooray!, I came across some info on the genius that is Crispin Glover. Regarding his latest film (here’s another link to the trailer), it recently premiered at the Sundance film festival, which lead to this hilarious write-up:

“… and then there was Crispin Glovers What Is It?, which featured not only manual stimulation of a handicapped man (by a naked woman in an animal mask, no less), but oral sex involving someone with Down syndrome, salted snails, a minstrel in blackface, the most racist song I have ever heard and Shirley Temple juxtaposed with swastikas. This wasnt just pushing the envelope; this was shoving the entire freaking Postal Service off the rim of the Grand Canyon.”

Say it with me folks: MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

- I’ve been playing this a lot lately. I’m not at all familiar with the band, but I do dig the game.

- And this has to be either the stupidest or the most brilliant Star Wars toy of all time. It’s all about the eyes. Man, I so wish I could have been there with that toy exec the moment he realized that “Vader” rhymes with “Tater”. Genius!

- No one else I know has really voiced this concern, but this whole trend of wacky breakdancing with other people’s heads has really got to stop (though I rather enjoy the “Singing in the Rain” remix in this clip).

- Ready for some He-Man & She-Ra cosplay? Sure.

How about some Ronald McDonald cosplay from the Philippines? You got it.

- And finally, I’m really bummed out. Why? Because not too long ago, I stumbled across a rockin’ video by the German disco group Dschingis Khan, and have been meaning to post it here for ages. But once I finally get around to it, I discover it’s no longer available! I am guilty of passing it along all over the place, plus I’d have to imagine that it was pretty popular to begin with, costing whomever a ton in bandwidth. I do have the saved video on my end, of course, but I have to worry about bandwidth as well. So until I can figure something out, all I can offer is a picture of them and an assurance that the video is fucking awesome.

EDIT: I was wrong. The vid can be viewed here. And yes, I know the guy looks like the bad guy from Flash Gordon. That’s what makes it so damn cool.

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