Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Hey Sandy
Hope you all had a good Christmas. I know I did.

I received plenty of nice gifts (Marx Brothers DVD set~; Monty Python tapes~; lots and lots of books~), but I'd have to say that the gifts I'm enjoying most right now are the season 1 and 2 sets of The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

We all know that there's a funny thing about certain shows... about how they only get better as we get older (more experienced in life would probably be a better way to put it). Pete & Pete is definitely one of those shows. I watched a few episodes last night, and, wow, maybe it was just one of those perfect moments where the planets are in alignment (and where said alignment doesn't result in mass turtle exodus to the Galapagos Islands for a little something something), but I really couldn't imagine enjoying a TV show much more than I did watching Pete & Pete.

This morning I sat down to write a regular Christmas post, detailing what I got, what I did, and whatnot. However, when I sat down, I instead started wondering about just why I seemed to like the show so much more now. Not that I didn't like it when I first watched it, but I was always more attached to Salute Your Shorts when it came to the live action shows (Clarissa Explains It All, All That and Are You Afraid of the Dark? were a step below, for me) and much more attached to the Nicktoons because, well, kids + cartoons = yay.

Normally I would say that the main reason shows like Pete & Pete get better as one gets older (or more experienced, whatever) is that the viewer just gets more of the jokes. Like any other great show, that's definitely true of Pete & Pete: There's more than enough there for the show to hold its weight with the Little Petes of the world but there's also a lot for the Big Petes, Ellens, Moms, Dads, etc.

But thinking about it a bit more, I see the appeal of the show running deeper than that. Age and experience does not just put a fresh spin on the jokes; it puts a fresh spin on everything. Pete & Pete is special to me because it's written and made in such a way that it evolves as you evolve. In each member of the Wrigley family (and to a lesser extent other characters such as Ellen, Nona, Stu, etc.) is someone with whom the viewer can identify as his or her point of view in life changes, while he or she also retains the memories and feelings of the earlier stages of life. With age comes more ways of seeing and experiencing each episode. At least, that's the way I look at it.

(Right now is where I'm hoping that this post isn't sounding too academic... lol.)

There's one moment in the "King of the Road" episode that I believe perfectly encapsulates those changing points of view. It comes when Don Wrigley makes a pit stop at that picnic area during the annual family vacation to Hoover Dam. Soon after the Wrigleys arrive, another family makes a stop there. They get out of their car, looking perfectly happy and content; not only do they have a kickass stack of luggage on the roof of their car, but they're also making great time. The reactions of the three guys to these usurpers is perfect to me:

- Dad's none too pleased to see this arrogant jerkoff waltz in to the pit stop acting as though he is the true king of the road. Obviously such a thing cannot possibly be tolerated, so good ol' Dad rushes his family back inside the car and puts the pedal to the metal.

- Big Pete's eyes are immediately drawn to Mr. Perfect's eldest daughter. She gets some nice lighting and a slow motion breeze through her hair because she's super hot. I can't say I disagree with Big Pete's taste in women. Big Pete then turns on the family and dares to actually approach the enemy in a friendly manner.

- Mr. Perfect's youngest daughter locks eyes with Little Pete and smiles shyly at him; Little Pete returns the gesture by narrowing his eyes in suspicion, and you just know he's thinking, "What's this girl's problem?"

I was about 4 when the 1-minute Pete & Pete shorts began airing, around 6 or 7 when the 30-minute specials appeared and 8 when the series proper began. Little Pete was definitely the character I identified with most those many years ago. As it relates to "King of the Road," I don't know that I would have been suspicious of Mr. Perfect's youngest daughter, but Big Pete's attitude toward the guy's eldest daughter surely would have baffled me. I was far from a "zomg girls = cooties" kind of kid; however, I was pretty apathetic to them in general, outside of the cool few who were my friends (or was it I who was cool enough to be their friend?). My first real crush was still a couple of years away. :P

Now of course I'm solidly in Big Pete territory (aside from me being about 7 years older than him >>;). Though I like the occasional road trip, taking the same trip year after year would eventually suck the life out of me. Singing road songs, playing roadkill bingo - not my thing, man. Also, I too would probably forget every member of my family the second Mr. Perfect's daughter stepped out of that car; of course, I'd also be hoping that everyone would forget me, too, following my spectacular failure to attract the attention of Mr. Perfect's daughter in a way that didn't establish me as her amusing puppet boy.

So, yeah, watching the show now, I feel as if I can better connect with the stories, because I can watch them from the experience that comes with currently being in Big Pete's shoes and from the memories and feelings I have stored from the Little Pete years (side note: That's probably the geekiest sentence I've typed this month; go me). It's like reading a story and then reading again from a different point of view. You get the same story, but at the same time it's not the same, because all of the little things that come along in life give one a unique view on life, unless you're some sort of evil, human-hating robot. Then there's just no saving you. Soulless metal bastard.

Anyway, branching off that (the unique view of the characters, not the evil robot stuff), what really adds a real punch to it is how utterly absurd and surreal the world of Pete & Pete is. Honestly, it's a far more truthful way of approaching the subject matter than playing it straight could ever be.

Look at this way: You're in 2nd grade; it's the middle of the afternoon, and your class is going out for a bit of dodgeball during P.E. What happens from an objective point of view? You go into the middle of a circle, kids throw dodgeballs of varying sizes at you, and you either avoid them all or you get hit. If you get hit, it hurts a bit, but not too badly; when you get hit, you're out of the circle. Not the most traumatic of events, eh?

But that's not how you see it when you're in that circle. The dodgeball circle is a war zone, a hellish, godforsaken pit of nastiness straight out of Saving Private Ryan. Balls are flying in from all directions; they come one after the other, and it's not always possible to tell where the next one, maybe the deathblow, will be coming from. The screaming of bloodthirsty children is a constant echo, a cacophonous shriek in the ears, and the war cry keeps on going until at last you're struck with the ball. And when that hit comes, it doesn't hurt so much outside as it does on the inside; you wanted victory so bad you could taste it. But there's nothing to do except sulk out of the circle and take your frustrations out on the next poor sap who thinks he or she can survive the slaughter.

The experiences that the surreal reality of Pete & Pete offers are like that. What's really happening isn't much of anything. When Big Pete first walks into shop class during "Tool and Die," there isn't actually much in the room besides a few kids sitting at their desks with the light whir of power tools sounding off in the background. But Big Pete immediately senses the sinister underbelly of shop; he knows that the saws are practically licking their chops for a chance at one of his tasty limbs. He knows that whatever Mr. Slurm is having him build, it's not something pleasant. And he knows that there is no more useless construction than the spice rack.

How many of us, when we really see something, see only what's there and nothing more? Not many of us (I hope), because what is right in front of our eyes often does not make a damn bit of sense. We see how bizarre and absurd the world often is, and we concoct fantasies and exaggerations to somehow explain just what the fuck is happening. Pete & Pete is all about that. The International Adult Conspiracy; paranoia in shop class; Mr. Tastee's secret life; and everything else. The kids (and to a lesser extent the grown-ups) see these things to help make sense of the strange world of Wellsville.

Isn't that what we all do? We all have our own Wellsville, some stronger than others, and our Wellsvilles are populated with our Endless Mikes, Orange Lazaruses, and phone booths that ring continually for 27 years. Why not? It's not as though reality makes much more actual sense. Sometimes it makes even less sense. But that's what our imaginations are for - to make sense of the senseless. Pete & Pete understands that, and God do I ever love it for that.

I'm tired right now, and I don't actually have much more to say, so I'll just leave you with a recounting of one of my favorite bizarre visual gags from the first season of Pete & Pete:

In the episode "Rangeboy," Big Pete speaks about how the story of his identity as a range boy will spread like wildfire if it is ever revealed. To visualize this idea, Pete conjures up the "Gossip Horn," after which the camera cuts to a teenage girl holding a conch shell up to her lips, blowing into it, and then, with a look of utmost seriousness on her face, pointing forward dramatically. It's just so out there that it cracks me up every time... the use of the conch as the gossip horn is what really gets me though. It's very Lord of the Flies.
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Thursday, December 21, 2006

My Animal Crossing Cast
Last night, Alan showed me this lovely thing. Truth be told, I'd actually forgotten that an animated film based on Animal Crossing (you can read more about the movie right here, btw), and I don't know that I'd really be interested in seeing it. However, talk soon turned to who would be the best voice actor to portray Mr. Resetti were this picture to be dubbed and brought stateside. We decided that Samuel L. Jackson would play Mr. Resetti, and then we proceeded on a tangent regarding the hilarious shift in personality that Resetti would undergo with Sam Jackson providing his voice (though, really, it wouldn't be that big a shift).

That conversation got me to thinking a little bit more this morning about who would play the other characters in my ideal version of Animal Crossing. I haven't thought everything through completely, but I have a rough idea of who I'd like to employ for some of the characters. Here they are:

Mr. Resetti played by Samuel L. Jackson: Mr. Resetti is one mean motherfucker. You know it, and I know it. One tiny reset sends the little guy flying off the handle in ways you or I could not possibly imagine; otherwise, he seems to be an okay guy, if a bit unstable at times due to a life spent underground with the rest of the mole people. But you always have to be wary of that pickax. Always, no matter how cool he is. Seems to me that Sam Jackson would be able to nail that no problem: You don't mess with him, he doesn't mess with you. However, if you start getting an itchy reset finger, he'll fuck you up something fierce.

Alternately, he could also be played by Ving Rhames, if only so that I could hear the line, "In the fifth reset, your ass goes down."

Tom Nook played by Joe Mantegna: Tom Nook is a punk. Not only that, but I'm convinced that he has deep connections that run in all of the seedy parts of town. The guy practically owns you from the beginning; he dangles your mortgage above your head, and when you're finished paying that off, he conveniently shows up to guilt you into buying new additions to your home. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Nook had his hands in the Happy Room Academy just to make it easier for him to destroy your already low opinion of your homemaking skills. How else would he get rid of all of that space-related crap if he didn't have some geek desperate to make a themed home?

And don't even get me started on his stores! As far as I can see, the player is Nook's only customer, so how the hell can he upgrade so quickly? If I'm barely rich enough to keep up on my mortgage, that furry bastard shouldn't be building a damn department store and poncing around in a new suit with his two annoying brats, who, by the way, appear to be ACHING to take over for daddy.

There's only one explanation, people: Mob ties. That's why only Fat Tony himself is good enough to play Nook. Al Pacino might also be a decent substitute, but, to my knowledge, there are no mountains of cocaine in Animal Crossing. Then again, there's always Action Replay.

Mayor Tortimer played by The Guy Who Voiced Mr. Turtle from the Tootsie Roll Pop Commercials Whose Name I Can't Recall At the Moment: Just imagine Mr. Turtle with a spiffy hat and you basically have Tortimer. Plus, it wouldn't even matter if the guy is dead - if the main character asks Tortimer a question, just have him mutter, "Ask, Mr. Owl" and we're off to see Blathers! It's foolproof! Well, unless a big drawing point of the film is the scene where the main character is introduced to Tortimer and the various holidays where Tortimer gives stuff away. Then, uh, not so much. But we're not in the business to give fanboys something to whack it to, so fuck 'em.

Crazy Redd played by Someone Other than Steve Buscemi: Fuck, I keep trying to think of somebody else, but my mind keeps flashing back to Steve Buscemi. I think it's because he's playing Templeton in the live-action version of Charlotte's Web. Plus he sort of looks like a sneaky little guy, and he has a track record for hoarding tons of crap (see: Ghost World and his role as Templeton). Also, he doesn't like to tip, and I doubt that Crazy Redd is fond of tipping either. Anyway. Okay, how about Steve Busc-- damn it. Uh, Steve Bu-- fuck. Ste-- son of a BITCH.

Okay, Buscemi. You win. You get the part. Asshole.

K.K. Slider played by David Bowie: Any excuse to get Bowie into a film. Just imagine him waltzing into a cafe, taking a rest onstage, and busting out his version of "K.K. Rock." You can't resist that, can you? Of course not, you weak-willed invertebrates! You are all like putty in Bowie's sensual hands. Those firm, sensual hands that have nothing to do with his voice...

...nothing to see here.

Wendell the Walrus played by Paul McCartney: Because Paul is the walrus.

Those are just a few ideas. Do you lovely viewers have any ideas of your own?
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Saturday, December 16, 2006

Lucky Ones Burn
How do you guys and gals motivate yourselves to do things that you actually want to do but for some reason never get done? (I hope that question was phrased confusingly enough for you!)

This is, of course, mostly writing-related for me, but it could really apply to any creative activity where there is no real recourse for being a lazy bastard and not doing anything, other than your imagination slowly rotting away, leaving your body a soulless husk of vegetable matter (possibly corn).

I guess the main problem with me and motivation is that I need something chasing me in order to get motivated. For example, I'm not a procrastinator when it comes to schoolwork (no, seriously); if I've got a deadline for some project or essay or whatever, then I'll work as quickly as I can to get that finished, especially if it's part of a group project. That's good enough for stuff I absolutely need to get done, because when I put my mind to it I'm a pretty hard worker and I do a good job with most things, but that honestly means jack shit for things I want to do on my own time, where I am the only person on my ass to get anything done.

I want to get away from the mindset that I need some goal or deadline set by another person to motivate me to start something and get it finished. It honestly bugs the shit out of me at this point. I know that I want to do things, and I pound it into my head every single day that, yes, today is the day that I will get something done, but by the time I actually get around to anything, it's really late, and my attitude is basically, "WTF, where did the day go? Ah, fuck this, I'm tired; I'll get it done tomorrow." Repeat ad nauseum.

(Another problem related to that is that I feel as though I've locked myself into a daily routine that's tough to get out of. Too often I find myself going through the day on autopilot. I don't like it.)

It's frustrating, to say the least. I love writing; I get the most joy out of my life from writing, whether it's a short story a simple blog post or whatever. The simply joy I get from it should be enough of a motivator, but I've found that, for me, that's not the way it works until I really get into things, until I'm really moving along with something and can preserve that momentum to use whenever I want. But I can't get that momentum unless I get started, and I feel like I can't get started without that momentum. Circles, circles, circles.

So, once again, I come back to the question I posed in the beginning: What do you do to motivate yourself? I know that there won't be some magical, catch-all thing that will work wonders on me, but anything that you guys and gals do for this sort of thing that might stand even a slight chance of doing something for me would be greatly appreciated. I'm sick of stewing in this mental rut I've been in for God knows how long and I want out more than anything in the world.

P.S. I'm obsessed with If Thine Enemy Hunger by Jucifer. It's definitely some of the best work they've done (and I might even think it's the best once the "zomg it's new and shiny" feeling wears off after a while), and I wouldn't be surprised if Jucifer ended up becoming my #1 most listened-to band on Last.fm because of this album.
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Monday, December 11, 2006

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
I've been sort of strapped for things to write about lately; I want to write a bunch of posts, but no inspiration = no posts. It's a curse, I tells ya. A sad, sad curse. However, after recently watching a film, I suddenly realized that I had not done one of these movie posts in a while (nor have I done a music post in a long time... I really left you guys and gals hanging after the fourth DVD, haha). So, here you go, everyone: A good recommendation from me to you.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a film I've wanted to watch for a long time now. Pyro is a huge fan of it, and I liked the premise and the actors and whatnot, so I showed some patience waiting for the DVD to show up at the library about three or four months after I initially requested it (can't complain about that too much, though, since I didn't want to actually, you know, pay for it, or anything). After finally receiving it, I was a bit wary when I popped it into the DVD player; incredibly built-up expectations and all that. I tried to temper that as much as possible, because it tends to ruin my enjoyment of a movie, and I'm glad to say that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is as sharp and funny as I hoped it would be.

After a brief prologue of sorts, the story begins with Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), a petty thief reduced to stealing from toy shops so that he'll have Christmas gifts to give to family. Late one night, while stealing an XBox, Harry and an accomplace are caught red-handed; the partner is shot, and Harry is forced to run away from the police. He makes his way into a small, bare room crammed with people in suits surrounding a single, empty chair. They mistakenly believe that Harry is another person waiting to audition for a detective role they are offering; Harry, who has no clue what is going on, reads the lines that are thrust into his lap, and, after further confusion on his part, delivers the lines so powerfully that he is cast into the part and safely away from the police.

Harry is then flown to Los Angeles. Once there, the studio tells him to tag along with Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer), alias "Gay Perry," a (shock) gay private detective. The studio figures that Harry will have an easier time slipping into his detective role with some on-the-job experience. Before leaving, Perry promises to take Harry on a stakeout the next evening. Later, while at one of many insipid Hollywood parties, Harry happens upon Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan), his dream-girl from way back when who left small-town Indiana long ago to follow her acting dreams. At first they hit it off, much to the annoyance of Harmony's "homely friend," but due to a case of drunken mistaken identity of the worst kind, Harry ends up with Harmony's door slammed in his face the next morning.

That evening, during Perry's stakeout, which he assured Harry would be routine, boring stuff, a car is launched from a hill into a lake. In the trunk of the car is a dead body. Harry panics, while Perry tries to calm him down and eventually decides that they have to leave; the suspicious circumstances lead him to believe that someone is attempting to frame them, though he has no idea why. When Harry gets back to his room, his situation is further complicated by two things: 1) Harmony's sister, who Harmony had no idea had moved to L.A., has been (apparently) murdered and she wants Harry's help in finding out who did it because he had implied to her that he's actually a private eye himself and 2) The body from the night before found its way into Harry's shower. He panics once again and later tries to work his way through the messy details of both cases, with the help of Harmony and Gay Perry.

I tried my best to make all of that as simple as possible, but it's probably an impossible task. As directed by Shane Black, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is one-half buddy cop film (a genre that Black added to heavily, having written the original Lethal Weapon and contributed to its three sequels), but it's also one-half film noir homage. One of the plot devices in the film is a series of (fictional) crime novels featuring detective Jonny Gossamer, whose stories serve as a nod to the hard-boiled crime novels that often influenced the very best of what film noir had to offer. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang's plot is a throwback to those noir films whose murky, labyrinthine plots really only made sense because the characters believed they made sense. The plot's definitely a fun ride at the time, but making sense of it later is a dizzying affair.

However, it's not really the plot that matters as much as the style it's told in. While the plot's a throwback to The Big Sleep and Laura and whatnot, the style is modernized and turned on its head. For example, there's the offbeat narration Harry provides during the film: Harry often breaks the fourth wall and interacts with the viewer, popping up to provide his own sarcastic view on certain events and some rather bizarre criticism of the story ("Don't worry, I saw the last Lord of the Rings movie; I won't have this end like 17 times."). He's also fond of literally stopping the film to criticize his own shoddy narration. Thankfully this happens enough to remain funny throughout but not so much that it becomes pretentious and annoying.

The way Kiss Kiss Bang Bang plays with the noir archetypes is fun too. Harry is far from the typical noir tough guy - as mentioned before, he flies into a panic more than once, he gets his ass kicked several times, and his understanding of the mystery is often several steps behind that of Perry and Harmony. Perry slips far more readily into the tough-guy role than Harry, which, hilariously, causes Harry to question Perry's gayness at first. He's really just a tough guy who just so happens to be gay, though he has a few touches here and there that poke a bit of fun at the "flaming gay" stereotype. A lot of the classic noir situations are played with as well - there's a funny scene a ways into the film, for example, that's pretty much the antithesis of a certain scene in Chinatown, in terms of toughness.

The style's not the biggest draw, however... that would be the great dialogue. You can tell that Shane Black had a hell of a time writing each line. There's so much caustic wit to everything and the insults fly so fast that they just seem effortless. So many films really try hard for that hip feel with their dialogue and crash and burn with it (see: The Boondock Saints, with apologies for once again ragging on that film). In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, on the other hand, it works well because it doesn't come off as being written only because the writer thought it sounded witty in his head - this is some genuinely hilarious shit.

It's also lovely to see the chemistry between the characters, especially Harry and Perry. Robert Downey Jr. is great as Harry; his weird, rambling delivery is perfect for how sarcastic Harry is and for how hard he tries to be tough and cool and just fails miserably at it. Perry's frequent ownage of Harry is hysterical, both for Perry's snappy lines and for the, "...oh." reaction from Harry, haha. Val Kilmer's Perry has the right mix of flamboyance and "Get the fuck out of my face, you idiot" that makes the character work. Michelle Monaghan is also fun, being generally sexy and also verbally owning Harry left and right. Her character has this great energy about her, too; it's cool seeing her be so active and throw herself into all of these dangerous situations while Harry is, say, nursing an injury and sleeping in a car.

The noir-ish tendencies and confusing plot of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang might at first seem to limit its appeal to some sort of snobby audience, but I think just about anyone with an actual sense of humor would be able to enjoy it, especially if you go for the darker stuff. It's got good action, hilarious dialogue, cool characters, and tons more going for it - it's just a fun as hell movie that you really should give a watch if you've yet to see it.
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Sunday, December 3, 2006

Shyriiwook
Ugh, finals.

I had my History of Asian Art final on Friday. I'm pretty sure I completely screwed up one of the essay questions due to a misinterpretation, and another one of them was on a topic I was having trouble with while studying, but I think I did well enough on the rest of the exam to quell the damage somewhat. Right now my hopes for an 'A' rest on my having done a kickass job on the museum project. Somebody make it happen!!

My other finals are this week. Thankfully, the only other tough final I have is on Thursday, so I'll have a couple of days to prepare for it. Not having to worry about that right now is quite nice indeed. I can just concentrate on studying for my relatively easier finals and (hopefully) ace the little bastards.

See, this is why I like finals more than midterms: I can actually put my complete focus on the damn tests, because I'm done with everything else. There's also the promise of a nice break afterwards. You don't get that with midterms, the evil little buggers.

And after all this is done, I'll finally be able to spend some decent time with the Wii, more specifically Twilight Princess. I've only been able to play in short bursts, so I've mostly been playing Wii Sports, which is basically designed for that. Wii Sports is a lot of fun, but, man, I can't wait to actually make some decent progress in Zelda. For God's sake, my brother has almost FINISHED it! This situation will be rectified after finals; you can bet on that. Of course, by then, my brother will probably have finished the game. I can already hear the gloating. :(

In other news, I tutored my cousin in algebra on Friday. It's been almost two years since I did math of any sort beyond the simple stuff that people do every day. Suffice it to say, it took me a couple of minutes to become reacquainted with my old nemesis; doing math is most definitely not like riding a bicycle. No, it's more like trying to learn how to use that gigantor controller from Steel Batallion, becoming obscenely confused, and looking to the instructions with no small amount of confusion, only to find that the instructions are written in Shyriiwook. Despite my initial puzzlement (which my uncle could not stop making fun of lol), however, I got a solid grasp on the problems (which were, of course, word problems), and I'm pretty sure my cousin understood how to do them by the end, unless he was lying to me. I guess we'll find out when he has to take a test!
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Friday, November 24, 2006

Blazing Crosscourt Forehand
Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving last night.

I had some fun. Originally we were going to have dinner at my house, but my cousin Timothy broke his leg Saturday, so obviously he wasn't in any shape to be going to anybody's home (well, he could've been if we were an evil family who enjoyed tortuing helpless children - which we're totally not, by the way).Thus, we went over to his house for dinner, and we brought along the Wii to cheer him up a bit.

The bulk of our time was spent playing Wii Sports (mostly because it would've been kind of rude to make him sit around and watch one of us play Zelda for hours and hours... lol). Even with the broken leg and having to be bunched up on a chair to support the leg on a couple of pillows, Timmy still managed to get the hang of things pretty easily. He seemed to enjoy tennis, baseball, and boxing the most; he probably would have loved bowling, too, were the motion for bowling not completely hindered by the position he was forced to sit in.

He was especially good at tennis. It was kind of amazing how quickly he adapted to it; he was blazing crosscourt forehands and dropping delicate sliced backhands within a few minutes of play. The kid gave me some good scares at a couple of points lol. I still put him away, though, because, broken leg or not, I am indiscriminate about whom I will crush in tennis.

Now if only I were anywhere near that good in reality. :(

We also had some fun Super Smash Bros. Melee matches. Makes me look forward to Smash Bros. Brawl all the more; I can't wait until it comes out. Then I'll be able to get my ass handed to me by people all over the globe! Yes!!

So, yes, good times were had by all. Fun, food, and family - not much more you can ask for when it comes to Thanksgiving. The only problem I had with it is that only Timothy's family and my family were around this year. It seems like each year, more family decides to stay on their own for the holidays; I can barely remember the last time we had a truly big family gathering. It's kind of sad, because I really enjoy it when the whole family is together. :/

Random note: I've been so busy over the past few days that I've not had time to play the episodes of Jeopardy! that my family has taped (yes, we play Jeopardy! together - shut up). I think that we have six episodes saved. Trivia overload~
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Sunday, November 19, 2006

Twenty-one??
Yep, I'm the ol' 2-1 today. I'm now old enough to drink, but since I don't really plan to take advantage of that, how about those of you who enjoy a little drink every now and again have an extra one for me, eh? :)

And, yes, this post has come late in the day because I've been busy with Wii most of the day. :P
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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The Black Wind Howls
Recently I finished the Final Fantasy Chronicles version of Chrono Trigger. Dirty little secret here: I'd never actually finished Chrono Trigger before. I got close once, but then I quit for reasons I can't even remember now. There was another time I got pretty far into the game... close to the end of the Ocean Palace, actually; however, I completely forgot how to beat the Golem Twins, and so I got frustrated and decided to spite the game by refusing to finish it. I left FF Chronicles to stew in its own shame and I have to say that it was fairly repentant when I began playing it again.

Of course, the little thing has a bit of a temper, so I still had to put up with an assload of slowdown. I think of all the Square games that were ported from the SNES to the PlayStation, Chrono Trigger suffered the worst. FFVI had some terrible slowdown, but man, Chrono Trigger's worst moments trump that pretty easily. And the load times... don't get me started on those. If I didn't know better, at times I would've sworn that the game had frozen; hell, I actually did think that at a couple of points!

It is worth putting up with though. I really like Chrono Trigger's battle system - it's simple but fun. Figuring out which two people will combine best for double techs and which character works best as a healer/single attacker in your party makes for good times. I mostly had Crono and Frog use Spire until Crono finally got Luminaire... then everyone was basically on his or her own lol. Crono, Frog and Magus were my final party. I think that this will be the only time I ever use Magus; you can get every other ending without recruiting him, I think.

I enjoy Chrono Trigger's story quite a bit as well. I'm a total sucker for time travel stories, so it drew me in right away. Also appreciated is that the characters are not unbearably somber; they're actually excited to be traveling through time to new worlds and saving their future, as well they should be. They would be a hell of a lot less endearing were they to treat this adventure with the utmost seriousness... well, they kind of do later on in the game, but it's a slow progression to that point rather than, "Hmm, let's stand around and be mopey and depressed and completely unlikable. That will solve things!"

Most of the characters' stories fun too. Not amazingly developed, but enough to make them interesting: Magus and Frog's tales of revenge, Lucca's reasons for delving so heavily into science, Robo's murky past and future, etc. The only character I don't really care for at all is Marle. She just annoys me throughout the game, and she never really became all that useful to me in battles either. At least Crono makes up for his silence by beating the crap out of everyone.

I've still got to get the other endings though. Don't know when I'll have time for that... I've got a couple of big projects to work on, along with the requisite studying and whatnot for my other classes. Not to mention the Wii launch. I'll probably have to wait until Winter Break to have an opportunity to play through Chrono Trigger some more lol.
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Monday, November 6, 2006

Garlic Ice Cream
EDIT: If you ever visited the Crappy Club for Jerks, but haven't been able to get into it for a while, it's because the site has moved: Here's the site now.

Also be sure to visit Group Sounds, which has recently been resurrected!!

This weekend I went on a fun road trip to San Jose to see the USC/Stanford game (well, the game was in Palo Alto, of course, but my dad and I stayed in a San Jose hotel). Good times were had by all. I don't have the time right now to go into everything in an ultra-detailed manner (yay for tests!!), but that is why bullet points were invented.

- My dad had wanted to leave early, but we had to leave later because I had the feeling that if I missed even one History of Asian Art class, then I wouldn't be able to catch up and the world would explode. "But why not simply borrow notes from another person?" you may ask. You simple-minded fool. Not only would I have to transcribe all of the notes, but I would also have to look up all of the pictures in the book, and that is work I'm just too lazy to do.

- The car ride was about five and a half hours, and I'd say about two-thirds of that involved us driving past either farmland or barren deserts that looked as though Harry Truman had just dropped an A-Bomb on them. Living in a decently-sized town for so long, you almost forget how dry and ugly a lot of California would be were it not for our traditional, time-honored policy of yoinking water from the Colorado River. The deserts do make for SOME nice scenery though; there was this one area of large, rounded hills set against an amazingly blue sky that just had this surreal look to it, like Vincent Van Gogh had done a landscape of Tatooine. The bright golden grass swaying in the wind in front of the hills was cool too.

- Back to the agriculture: California is well known for growing just about every type of fruit and vegetable conceivable to man. You could scarcely go a few miles without passing some farm or farming town. The most notable of these farming towns, for me, is Gilroy, which proudly proclaims itself as "the garlic capital of the world." And, really, I've not run into any place that is likely to challenge that claim any time soon. Literally the entire area is choked with the smell of garlic; the scent is very strong even passing by the town on the freeway. I doubt that Gilroy even needs city limit signs - you just need to take a few sniffs and it immediately dawns upon you, "Oh, I must be in Gilroy."

As I have learned through further research, Gilroy is rather eccentric about its garlic. They have an annual garlic festival each year, where you can secure such delicacies as garlic ice cream. Yum. I also suspect that anyone who farms and doesn't grow garlic is severely ostracized by the community. My evidence? We passed by a farmer whose main wares were garlic and cherries. Who grows those two together? I can only hope that these two were kept apart via a vicious brand of segregation that even Strom Thurmond would balk at. I like garlic, and I like cherries, but damn it, I do not want my cherries to even have a hint of garlic in them. We must not allow these plants to mix. Ever.

- Aside from that stuff, most of the ride to San Jose was uneventful, with the exception of one thing at the end. The Los Angeles County sports radio had fizzled out long ago, so my dad an I were forced to listen to the local sports radio as we inched ever closer to San Jose. I don't remember what radio station he was on, but one of the radio hosts sounded exactly like Truman Capote. Seriously, Philip Seymour Hoffman could have taken a few tips from this guy. It was so bizarre hearing him rant in this amazingly high, lispy voice about how the Golden State Warriors haven't had a great shooter since Chris Mullin. I can still hear the guy in my head right now, haha.

- The hotel we stayed at was nice. Weird thing though: In the middle of the night, I swear it sounded like someone was rummaging through the drawers in our room. I have no evidence that this actually occurred, other than the noise of the drawer handles keeping me awake for about a half hour. I even looked around and found no trace of anyone having been in our room at all. But I have my suspicions.

- Stanford is MASSIVE. You always hear about how large these private schools are, but you can never really know until you actually walk around on them yourself. Cal Poly Pomona is decently sized, but it's essentially a drop in the bucket compared to Stanford. Right now I am almost certain that we built the CLA building due to some form of college campus penis envy. My hypothesis is strengthened due to the fact that we can't stop jabbering about how the building was featured in such films as Gattaca and Impostor.

- The actual game itself was a lot of fun. USC pretty much beat the crap out of Stanford the whole time. Everything that could have went wrong for them actually did, which has been the norm for them this season. I felt sorry for them, because I actually do like Stanford a lot. But the game was fun and exciting the whole way through, so whatever. Stanford had to be sacrificed so that I could have a good time at the game.

- In an unfortunate turn of events, however, we did not see the annual battle between the USC and Stanford marching bands. Those battles are a big reason why I look forward to USC/Stanford games more than most, because they're such a fun, tongue-in-cheek affair. The whole thing is basically both bands being smarmy pricks and mocking the crap out of each other. It's so great lol. Without that battle, I felt an intense, overwhelming urge to sprint to the restroom, as per usual during halftime.

- "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" is approximately 22.7% less annoying as an instrumental song than it is with vocals.

- College football players apparently get their own pizzas after games. The urge to steal a pizza was great but quickly suppressed due to each football player being about twice my size.

- I think that it must be roadkill season at the moment; I cannot recall ever seeing as many dead animals on the road as I did during this road trip.

- On the way home we passed by Pismo Beach, but we did not get all of the clams we could eat. I suspect that we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

- Also near there were a ton of trailer parks and small homes packed together so tightly that I wonder if they ever go outside at all. Hmm. You know, I would push that train of thought further, but I think that I'll end this post here so that I can contemplate the irony of me wondering whether someone goes outside.
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Wednesday, November 1, 2006

A Song for the Dead
A list of the first batch of Virtual Console games was recently released by Nintendo.

The Nintendo front is pretty barren for me. I've already got Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda, and the only other titles I'd maybe be interested in buying on either system are Ice Hockey and SimCity (and that's a big maybe for $5 and $8 respectively). Hopefully there will be a few more interesting Nintendo games that I actually don't own/can't play anymore released in the next batch of Virtual Console games (Super Metroid, Kirby Super Star, Earthbound, etc.).

There are some Genesis games I might be interested in buying though. Sonic the Hedgehog is borderline, as is Golden Axe, and I am leaning toward buying Gunstar Heroes and Toe Jam & Earl. The $8 price tag makes me somewhat hesitant, however; I wish the games were available for a bit less.

As for the TurboGrafx-16, I'm not sure what I want to buy there, but I can always check out Tony's guides to the TurboGrafx-16's games.

In other news, I went out for Halloween last night and had some fun. Pictures of my siblings and me in our costumes are available on OB if anyone is interested in seeing them. It was nice to be able to completely forget school and projects and essays and exams and be a little kid again. At the same time, however, it's kind of sad to see how much Halloween has degenerated where I live.

I'm not entirely sure when it started. Maybe it was after 9/11 when people started feeling less safe in general, or perhaps it started earlier than that and I'm just plucking the 9/11 date out of thin air because it seems like a plausible cause because people enjoy rampant paranoia. Who knows? At any rate, where plenty of people used to pack the streets to trick or treat for Halloween, it's now disquietingly empty. Each year, the number of people who went out and who gave out candy trickled down slowly, until last year when my dad told us that not a single person had knocked at our door.

Even before then, we'd long since stopped trick or treating in our housing complex - maybe five people or so had actually been giving out candy the last year my siblings and I bothered to walk around there. We went to a close neighborhood for a couple of years, but not that many people were giving out candy there, either, and when we looked around this year, we saw maybe one or two isolated groups of kids and parents walking around. They were just so... barren, as if it were any other night in the year. That did not bode well at all for us, so we actually decided to go to an entirely different town (West Covina) for Halloween. There were quite a few people there giving out candy, and we saw a few costumed groups wandering about, but not nearly as many as years past.

These developments really make me curious. I mean, it's not as though we're lacking in children here, and I'm sure that the number of people who have celebrated Halloween the majority of their lives outnumbers those who haven't. Maybe people just don't see the point anymore? That would be sad. Halloween is a fun way to connect a bit more with the community, especially in towns like La Puente. It's nice to see little kids having fun, dragging around their parents, knocking at strangers' doors and yelling, "Trick or treat!" in chorus, and it's just as nice to be the person giving out the candy to them. It's fun to dress up in costume and assume some totally different character for the night. It's a blast to do it with friends, whether you're outside or you're at a party.

Most important, though, I think it's good to keep up the spirit, because it allows us to remember that life doesn't always have to be so serious. You can be anybody you want to be. You can have fun with people you've never met before and might not even see again for another year. You can be a little kid again.

I think it'd be sad to see that die.
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