You must read this
It’s seriously one great smack after another. I was dying laughing. I am going to remember the last “story” in this and use it every day. EVERY DAY I TELL YOU.
I think I’m going to make facebook friends or twitter friends with Roger Ebert, if I can! Haha!
Edit: I can’t. Apparently he’s too cool for social networking sites.
Addiction
Man, I am so addicted to the Nintendo DS right now. I could play it all day and all night long. I need to be able to focus on school work, but how can I when I can make so much money from making fourheads have sex and then selling their babies in Viva Pinata?
I think Nintendo is totally brilliant–the Wii and DS are harangued by dudebros all the time for not being 360 and PS3 clones and having first person shooter games, but man, that’s just the thing–they are trying to appeal to everyone else. Every demographic outside of 13-27 year old males. My mother-in-law has a wii for cryin’ out loud. Everyone has one. Maybe it’s not for “serious gamers,” but why the fuck should Nintendo appeal to that demographic when it can put out like 100 games about horses and puppies and card games and language learning and get everyone else on the planet to buy? And a DS is only $130, I’m sure this christmas a lot of parents were like, “I want to get my kid a gift and he or she wants video games, but gee I just can’t afford any of those systems and their myriad accessories. Hey, look, the Nintendo DS is $130 and there are a ton of cheap games for it. Hmm.”
Not only that, I think these systems will break a lot of people into more hardcore games when they may otherwise not have been inclined to do so. For example, I have Super Princess Peach right now and it’s piss easy, but stuff like that and the hundred Barbie horse games might convince parents who might otherwise think “oh videogames aren’t for girls” to give a game system to their little girls and get them hooked for life.
It’s brilliant, I’m telling you.
I always wondered why more video game companies don’t try and appeal to a broader audience, and I think Nintendo has shown that doing so actually IS the smart thing to do.
As for the DS in particular, I don’t know why, but I love playing games with the stylus.
I think I’m going to start a little side blog to review the games I’m playing. I think I’ll try and update it weekly. I have to actually finish some of these games first though so I can review them! Since I’m playing like five at once it’ll be a little while!
Cartoon nostalgia snobs are missing out
I was a dedicated connoisseur of cartoons as a child, and despite my dad’s assurances to the contrary, I remain a dedicated connoisseur of cartoons to this very day, as an adult woman, and I intend to remain one well into my dotage. As someone who still watches cartoons to this day, I’m always baffled when people around my age go around moping that cartoons now a days just aren’t as good as they used to be, and kids are missing out on soooo much because all they have is Spongebob.
First off, I hate Dora the Explorer. When I’m at someone’s house and a kid is watching it I feel like poking my own eyeballs out. However, I have a good feeling this is the case because I’m not 16 months old. No shit I don’t enjoy a show meant to entertain toddlers. The same with stuff like Blues Clues and all the other “educational” sorts of TV programming for people which have not long existed outside the womb–I can’t really comment on it because it’s not meant for me.
But Spongebob! Spongebob is the fuckin sheezy fo reazy. Admittedly, I have not seen anything in Spongebob as subversive and full of innuendo as anything I saw on Rocko’s Modern Life, but it’s still hilarious. It’s totally random, and the exaggerated depiction of the workforce always kills me. Squidward is the best character ever. Adults can’t relate to Spongebob–they are all Squidward–the jaded bastard who hates the perky fuckers at work and just wants it all to go away–and still cling to their dreams of stardom but really can’t play a musical instrument well and will never be rock stars. I think most of the people who use Spongebob as an example of new shitty cartoons stopped watching cartoons long ago and just assume that it’s bad, ’cause it ain’t bad, it’s endless entertainment. Although I wouldn’t know, I assume it’s even better while smoking a fat doobie.
This kind of attitude probably makes people miss out on all sorts of good stuff. I suppose I’m committing the biggest faux paux ever when I say this, but the new Ninja Turtles cartoon kicked 31 flavors of ass. All sorts of people I talked to about it lamented the bastardization of one of their favorite old cartoons. I loved the old Ninja Turtles cartoon, but the new one was even better. Even movie critics were guilty of this–so many of them whined that the new CGI TMNT movie just didn’t have the charm of the old movies, but when you look at the old movies, they ALSO got shitty reviews. I guess that could mean they’re saying the new movie was more lousy than shit movies, but I think their minds were just clouded by nostalgia and they couldn’t appreciate the new one for what it was. Also, people were so confused by April and Casey in that movie, while I kept thinking, well if you watched the new cartoon this would not seem so foreign to you! I loved that movie, btw.
There are also a lot of good Cartoon Network cartoons that are nominally for kids. I love Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. I also own the Powerpuff Girls Movie, although I think that show went downhill after the first couple of seasons. The Adventures of Billy and Mandy is twisted and fun to watch. And so far as cartoons for adults, Venture Bros. is close to replacing Futurama as my favorite show ever, and I freakin’ love and adore Futurama.
When I watch cartoons I enjoyed in my youth I actually DON’T think a lot of them were as good as stuff I watch now. I used to love Ren and Stimpy but I when I’ve watched a few of them now I don’t think it’s nearly as funny as I used to. I used to watch Garfield and Friends religiously, and even back then I wanted the barnyard episodes to get over with quickly because they were fucking boring. Maybe I’d appreciate them more now but I don’t feel like finding out.
I remember watching some Bugs Bunny cartoon or something as a kid and my mom saying, “now a days they never make cartoons that creative.”
I just shrugged her comments off as teenagers are wont to do, but what I should have asked was, “when is the last time you watched a cartoon made within the last 5 years?”
This is the question I pose to people who comment on Pinky and the Brain clips with stuff like “cartoons made now will never be as good as cartoons made in the 90’s.” I mean, I agree that Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs and Freakazoid and Tiny Toons and Rocko’s Modern Life and Angry Beavers and Darkwing Duck and Gargoyles were totally friggin’ awesome, but just remember that your parents thought all of that was shit compared to Looney Tunes and Popeye.
Actually I’m not sure something as great as Gargoyles that’s specifically made for kids will happen again any time soon. I put that show up there with Darkwing Duck and Futurama, although every time I turn on Toon Disney they’re playing the same friggin’ episodes where Oberon tries to steal the kid of Fox and Xanatos and I just get tired of seeing the same episodes over and over. I really need to buy all the episodes somehow.
And what kind of values was Ducktales instilling in kids? For fuck’s sake, Scrooge’s greatest enemy was the second richest anthropomorphic duck dude in the world, and the huge conflict was remaining #1 in the more money than god competition. I swear he could spare some money for the local SPCA or something–although pets in a world with anthromorphized animals always seems bizarre to me. I’m looking at you, Pluto.
Ok now I want to make a blog about how awesome Darkwing Duck was. I always loved Gosalyn because she was just like me. A tomboy who dreams of being a superhero with a thing for really freakin’ nerdy guys. Maybe some other time.
Anyway the lesson to be learned from this is–saying cartoons made in the years post your childhood are crappy just makes you look old and bitter.
Nostalgia for websites? Hot damn I’m old
A friend of mine posted the geek hierarchy on a facebook posting, and I looked at it thinking, “hey I fall into a shitload of those categories!” But I also thought, “ah mah gawd, this is from BRUNCHING SHUTTLECOCKS!”
Oh I miss that website! I loved it loved it loved it as a fledgling geekling in high school.
Lore Sjöberg totally rocked my socks. I satiated all my movie-review needs with the Self-Made Critic. (This was before I discovered The Filthy Critic).
Here is a link to the geek hierarchy in its original home, Brunching Shuttlecocks, for your viewing pleasure.
I think the magnitude of my geekitude is demonstrated by the lowest category I fall into, “Pokemon fans over the age of 6.” Apparently that puts me on the same level as trekkies who marry in klingon garb, and people who write erotic Mary-Sue fanfics. At least I can still laugh at furries.
Everything on that website was just the funniest crap ever. I still occasionally read Lore’s other stuff (Lore Brand Comics are pretty dang funny), which is great, but is updated so infrequently if I look once every 2 years I have a good half an hour of entertainment. Oh well, gives me something to add to my links list.
Arch Lists, not just for breakfast anymore!
On the best show in the world, The Venture Bros., the villains treat their villainy like a job and “arch” their enemies all the live long day. It’s fun to think about this concept and create lists of people/groups I would “arch” if given the chance. I asked my husband who he would arch, and he said “Christians and Republicans.” This I think is too large of a group. The last person to arch a group that large was GW Bush, except in his case it was 98% of the United States. Plus you have to consider if the person/group would be fun to have as your arch enemy. I would not be entertained by either of those groups.
It’s no fun to just list a bunch of people you hate–I certainly admire a lot of people on my arch list–it’s just also be fun to arch people you like, people you think it’d be hilarious if they had an arch enemy, or people you just think would be a fun challenge–like if you love the Colbert Report and decided to arch Stephen Colbert for the fun of it. I think Oprah would probably secretly have a ninja army and futuristic laser weaponry. Sarah Haskins would probably have a lot of witty quips to parry my villainous speeches. It’d be good times. I figure with them I’d have more of a Dr. Venture vs. Sgt. Hatred relationship (the villainy is just the job, man! It doesn’t have to be personal), and with, say, Nickleback, it’d be more of a Dr. Venture vs. the Monarch relationship (I will destroooy yoooou!! But they still always manage to get away!)
I also think it’d be no fun to arch some people you hate because they’d just use it as evidence that they are correct in having martyr complexes. That’s why I don’t have as many people who are wholly hamsterfuckin douchebrains on my list, like Rush Limbaugh, but I have people who are mostly shitballs, like Chris Matthews. (Who’s the “she-devil” now, hmm, Chris Matthews? Answer me that, while I have you tied up and hanging over a pit of alligators!) Tom Leykis and the University of Phoenix are wholly evil, but I couldn’t resist the idea of making them miserable. Some of these people are already arching various groups–like Scott Boras is arching all MLB owners, and Nickleback is arching my eardrums. That would be more like villain on villain action.
So, without further adieu, here is a list of some people/groups I would choose from to make my arch enemy if I were a Venture Bros.-style villain.
The University of Phoenix
Tom Leykis
the dad on Orange County Choppers
Nicholas Cage
The editor of Cosmopolitan magazine
The creator of “Lean Cuisine”
Sarah Haskins
Adam Sandler
The Pope
The Saudi royal family
Scott Boras
Joe Biden (give him something to do)
Chris Matthews
Seth McFarlane
Oprah
Prince Charles
Dora the Explorer
Nickleback
Texas
Zombie Aristotle
I’m sure I can come up with more, but this is a good start. I need to come up with a villain persona but I can’t think of anything good. And trust me, this is something I’ve thought about often.
Someone asked me at one point, “why the villain and not the good guy?” And I was just like, “question does not compute.”
Man, why not the villain?! They get cooler costumes and cooler technology. They all seem to have unlimited funding from somewhere, somewhere that’s often not explicitly stated. I mean I’m sure it seems a “good guy” would be harassing the creator of lean cuisine because he or she deserves it, but truly, it is a villainous thing to harass even the most annoying jerks who ever lived. As a good guy you only get to react to wrongdoing. As long as people are just going about their business, legally spouting off undead, annoying philosophical opinions or selling food that is overpriced and tastes like cardboard, you can’t do anything. Should Nicholas Cage one day decide to destroy Tokyo, sure, then a good guy/super hero could act. But just being a bad, mopey-looking actor? Only villainy can respond to this.
Does a 16 year old need a Porsche?
Ok, some gossip rag my husband was reading was asking if 16 year olds with learners permits need Porsches because apparently that’s what Miley Ray Cyrus got.
I say–man, she’s a zillionaire. She can have whatever kind of car she wants. She can get an automatic Lamborghini like Kobe Bryant’s wife if she wants. If I was her I’d get a helicopter license or a space ship license instead of a driver license. If I was a zillionaire like her I’d just land a freakin’ jet on top of buildings and throw wads of cash at the building owners to make up for the damage. I’d have a bounce house on the moon that I’d play in on weekends. My house would be one ball pit and bounce house after the other. I’d go from room to room jumping on thick, inflated fabric. I’d jump from one bouncy room into ball pits and swim across into the next bouncy room. I’d have a new giant marshmallow every night to sleep on. I’d have a garden train I could ride on that ends in a breakfast restaurant with greasy hashbrowns, fresh corned beef hash and homemade poppyseed muffins. I’d have a fleet of chefs to refill a buffet with alternating days of Mexican and Indian food. I’d have a trampoline in the middle of a huge deep heated indoor swimming pool so if I fall off I can just swim to an awesome obstacle course of a rope strewn across floating stepping stones all the way to a gigantic water slide before I got on the trampoline again.
Miley Ray Cyrus does not “need” a Porche. She doesn’t need a playground on the moon. She does, however, have the money for them!
