- First things first: my latest Cinema Pixeldiso piece for GameSetWatch went live late Friday afternoon. Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering or noticed, yeah, my GSW column was originally slated to be for every other Wednesday, but since the first two ended up being published on Thursdays, it was then moved to that day officially, but when the moment of truth arrived, I got wrapped up in a ton of crap (long story short: sorry Apple fans, but viruses for Macs do exist), hence why it went live late Friday. But the plan is to be ahead of schedule next time: next Tuesday, Halloween will be a special edition, with reviews of two feature length movies, each horror themed. And then the following Thursday, instead of a regularly scheduled Cinema Pixeldiso, I’ll be doing a special report regarding comics books…
Anyhow, the latest piece is all about the original Super Mario Bros movie from back in the early 90′s which, at least in my humble opinion, isn’t that bad! It was at least… different. And you know, if you’re gonna have Mojo Nixon in your movie, you may as well make him a folk-song singing toadstool that gets transformed into a brainless dinosaur with a harmonic, right?
- Back to the subject of Halloween, its now officially a week away and I’ve been so busy that there just hasn’t been any time to work on my originally planned costume, that being the Hamburglar. Plus, I probably won’t be around town this upcoming weekend to hit any parties. Instead I’ll be at Great Adventures, and maybe riding roller coasters in a big goofy outfit might not be the best of ideas (okay, maybe it actually is).
Though I’m now thinking of just dressing up as Teen Wolf’s Dad. Why? Because it should be relatively easy enough to whip together. Plus Dave (Mauro) is going to be Teen Wolf, so I guess if we’re able to hit a party together, we could make a decent team, but I’m pretty sure that Teen Wold’s Dad is pretty awesome all by himself.
- Anyway, as for the rest of last weekend, Friday night was Jay’s birthday, which was a bit lite on the Japanese punk rockers and dockworkers, but it was still lots of fun nonetheless. Just sat around with Jay, Joe, and June plus other peeps, drank some beer, eate cocktail weenies, and cake, plus watched some game shows. I finally got to see Deal or No Deal, and Jesus Christ, how the in the hell did such a shitty show get so fucking popular?! At least Match Game was on later in the evening; I forget if it’s been mentioned before, but I am a fanatical diehard fan of that show. It?s sorta hard to describe why… I would have to assume that the brilliance of a entire game show built around contestants trying to guess six B list celebs complete dirty limericks, and while totally drunk off their asses, is pretty obvious.
We also decided to get into the holiday spirit by carving pumpkins, which most of us hadn’t done since we were like seven. It was lots of fun. We were at our friend’s Russ’ place and he got a new kitten, and I had lots of fun playing with a cat that wasn’t morbidly obese (unlike the 60 pounds sacks of fur and cat fecees I have to live with), but like a total idiot, I touched my eyes immediately afterwards without washing my hands, and I had a allergic attack immediately (though June had some allergy meds on-hand to help take care of the situation). We also got to check out Russ’ HD projector, as well as fuck around and take pictures, like this one of the birthday boy.
Since there was work at SVA the next morning, I decided to head out early and hail a cab, and I had easily one of the worst taxi related experiences in recent memory. And the thing is, I generally like cab drivers and am more than up for a conversation (almost everyone has countless awesome tales), but this one guy had a shitty attitude right from the start when he asked where to. When I responded with Brooklyn, he got all pissy with “Oh? And how do we suggest we get there?” It’s like, listen asshole, I know you don’t like going out to Brooklyn, but its part of the fucking job, deal with it. Besides, I fucking hate that question since, are they supposed to know how to get anywhere? So when I said either of the bridges, he then got even more irate with “Don’t you know that all the bridges are totally clogged?!” Like I would fucking know that? When I then suggested the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, he then went “That might not be much better”…. Again, I’m the fucker who’s getting charged here, why the hell is he complaining? The more time I spend in his car is more money in his pocket!
A few minutes later as we’re on the east side highway, he asks me…
cab driver: “So did you hear?”
me: “No… About what?”
cab driver: “Some guy earlier tonight fucking raped and killed his daughter. Can you believe that?”
And I didn’t have much of a response, other than “Gee, that’s messed up…” Then for the next fifteen minutes, he just went on and on and on about one horrible tragedy from the news after another. Until finally…
cab driver: “So hear about those 9/11 victims? Can you believe that bullshit?”
me: “Okay, you know what? I get it, the world if f’d up. So could you please be quiet for the rest of the ride? Because you are seriously bumming me out.”
cab driver: “Bumming you out?!?!?!”
Then he got all pissy at me and started bitching, and I argued for a bit, then grew tired and put on my iPod, and I think he rambled on for a bit more till he ran out of steam. And dickface wondered why I gave him such a shit tip.
- The next day, after work, I headed up to the Bronx along with Jason to finally check out Fordham Game World, which I had been hearing about for literally years over at the Gaming Age Forums, as the truly last great indie game store in the Big Apple. And… it more than lived up to the hype. It was like Game Express on 32nd near Penn Station all over again, with a ton of older, and hard to find PS2, GameCube, Xbox, and GBA games. I was actually hoping for older systems, like PSone and classic GB games, but the place is rather small and already overflowing, plus with the DS, PSP, 360, and more on the way, I guess beggars can’t be choosers. But yeah, I was totally floored by the selection… I almost bought another additional copies of Rez and Guitaroo Man “just in case”, and if I had the cash to spare, I would have, but till then I’ll just keeping doing what I have been, which is let no other human being touch my precious copies. I was also strongly tempted to pick up a few PS2 import titles; there’s wasn’t too much, at least not compared to Chinatown, but their prices were insanely good. But again, I should maybe wait till I get my PS2 chipped.
But I did pick up a pair of rather hard to find GBA titles: Gekido Advance and Mr. Pants. Gekido Advance, which was been just perfect since I’ve been on a real (portable) fighter/beat ‘em kick as of late (maybe someone can tell me if the GBA King of Fighters games are any good) and Mr. Pants has been decent thus far, though I need to play a bit more I make a final call on it.
- Afterwards I went out to Jersey to see MK who was pretty ill. And because of her sickness, we really couldn’t do much, but I personally didn’t mind just sitting around, watching DVDs, and just resting on the couch (which we both managed to catch some z’s on, despite it being the worst, most uncomfortable thing on this planet Earth; we were that out of it). We mostly just watched Little Britain, which I’m quickly discovering is the new Benny Hill, in the sense that most Brits I’ve talked to simply doesn’t want to talk about it.
We also caught Saturday Night Live, and… holy shit, it was actually funny! Seriously! Though I somewhat expecting it since Tina Fey is no longer writing for the show, thank God. Which meant stronger, funnier sketches overall, plus Weekend Update wasn’t some 35 minute femi-Nazi borefest like its been for the past couple of years (I really hate to use a Rush Limbaugh term, but I honestly can’t think of a more appropriate term, and trust me, I tried). Also really helping was guest host John C. Reilly who’s just an awesome actor who made virtually every sketch work (even their pretentiously coined “digital short” was pretty funny thanks to John). My fave had to be either him as the dumb blonde chick that couldn’t stop stuffing tacos down her throat or the series of angry dad sketches, which you can ask MK, had been in hysterics for a solid two minutes straight each (maybe because they hit so close to home). Oh, and My Chemical Romance was the musical guest, which was interesting to watch for assorted reasons.
On a side note, I am curious why they decided to go back to the early 80?s (81-84?) SNL logo.
- I was also happy to return some stuff that MK had lent me a whiles back. I recently finally finished reading the last two Sandman collections; from what I gather, many people really enjoyed book nine, The Kindly Ones, which I liked, but I really dug the final volume, The Wake. I just love good endings. And yeah, I guess I’m weaksauce comic book guy for not reading Sandman back in the day, but in my defense, I read Watchman well before all my peers; when everyone got handed a copy in my 4th year storytelling for cartoonists class at SVA, I was completely shocked, and even a tiny bit disgusted, that virtually almost no one else in my class had read it beforehand. I also returned some Fart Party collections, which MK left behind at my place which was what got me into Julia Wertz‘s comics in the first place. The one where she gets so pissed off at a dude that she rips the guy’s head off and shits in his neck hole… classic.
Also finally checked out the issue of Clamor Magazine which has a nice and big expos? on American Apparel. I know a bunch of folks who from the clothing world and I’ve heard a lot of crazy stories regarding the company, so it was nice to finally get some hard info on the man behind the company, Dov Charney. Man, what a worthless piece of shit. I want to just say that I hope he gets AIDS, but that would mean that all the poor twelve-year-old girls he fucks would get infected, so instead, I hope he gets his cock cut off somehow. Anyhow, the whole article made me want to throw away all the AA shirts that I have at home.
But aside from the asshole who runs the place, their bullshit business tactics, the extremely obnoxious ad campaign, and how people are such suckers for it (especially “progressive types”, the ones who also buy into the same sort of bullshit that Starbucks and Whole Foods also tries to sell, which the article also does a great job with giving shit towards), I just hate the fact that their shirts are not only too small, but inconsistently sized. I have some American Apparel shirts that are Large and that are too tight, and others that fits me just perfectly. Anyway, from this point on, I’m getting Extra Large just to be on the side…
- Not too much to report from Sunday, though I did finally get the chance to play Mega Man ZX. It’s pretty awesome. Oh, and I finally got Guitar Hero yesterday. It was the last one they had at the Best Buy near work. Which means when part 2 comes out, I will have gotten some practice in, plus have a second guitar for co-op play. And even though I still suck at it… dear God is it amazing.
- Also yesterday, I stopped by the Nick Mag office to check out a demo and I tried selling my editor on the idea of doing a story about the super sweet robot at DigitalLife, and even though I didn’t have enough time to pass along the specifics, there did seem to be some interest, though I was asked “Are these genuinely cool robots that kids would like, or just the kind YOU like?” which I found sorta funny.
I guess I sorta have a robot monkey on my back in relation to Nick Mag, dating back to the time I “met” a robot at some robotics show and was so blown away by the AI that I sold the idea of doing an interview with it to my editor (at the after party, he was chit-chatting, even dancing, with tons of folks, and totally shooting down wise-asses, all in multiple tongues), but I would later find out it was a stand up comic in the booth that was saying all the words, which was sorta embarassing. A stand up comic who apparently knew seven different languages fluently.
- Once again, I find myself out out of loop in regards to all the breaking game related news, though with so much shit going on, its almost impossible to really be on-top of things. Case in point, I’m pretty confused as to what the deal is with the GBA, DS, and PSP versions of Cave Story. First, according to this, the PSP version of Cave Story is not bullshit and is in-fact approved by Pixel. And I too feel that it’s bullshit. Next, here’s a long awaited up on the GBA port. Which was then followed by a question from the guy doing the conversion to all the folks waiting, in which he wonders is a DS port preferable? And it seems that the overwhelming majority favors a DS port, and I’ve now heard that it will indeed be changing platforms.
I’ve also heard about YesAsia selling PS3′s for $1,500 and $1,900. Ahhh…. no.
Plus how Sony got Lik-Sang shut down. Such bullshit. I hope to God Play-Asia is not next.
And here’s a few other things I basically forgot or haven’t had the chance to pass along, like…
… word that Clover Studio has been shut down. Such a shame. I haven’t gotten a chance to pick up Okami yet (maybe I’m “part of the problem”?) so I hope it doesn’t become insanely hard to find in the coming weeks.
… The winner of the Mortal Kombat ultimate fan contest. Though as pointed out by some over at the IC forums, this dude’s death metal rendition, and accompanying video is entertaining as well (that is, if you’re really into the game and therefore can get all the references… otherwise, its sorta gay).
… yet another example of how ill-informed the “gaming press” can be, according to some. I’m not clear of all the details, but apparently it was some big joke and many are upset that Destructoid never bothered to do the research to realize this, which is a valid gripe; most folks in the “gaming press” rarely do any real investigation, espeically the blogger types. But then again, it’s somewhat of an honest mistake. Cue any one of Mike (O’Connor)‘s “Japan = so-so-so-soul cancer!” jokes.
Though it makes me wonder, if I were to send those folks this, would it too get a nice article out of it as well?
- Oh, and I also (and finally) updated my links page, so some of my friends can expect a 2.45% increase in page-hits (maybe), mostly from gamer nerds. I’ve also decided to bring back the mystery square, which I will change periodically. Expect mostly links either pertaining to video games, robots, and backyard wrestling. Maybe even porn (which will hopefully combine all three of the previous things).
