Hillbilly juice, refined

It’s always been hit-or-miss for Mountain Dew whenever they release a new flavor.  And while I was skeptical at first, I have been enjoying their latest concoction: Solar Flare.  It’s basically Mountain Dew with a tropical punch taste, but man, they sure didn’t skimp out on the flavor as this one is intense.  The backside when gulping has such an extreme tropical punch kick to it that it would even make Hawaiian Punch's mascot, Punchy, take notice.

Only YOU can prevent forest fires

One of the games shown at PAX Prime this past week was Firewatch.  And based on the trailer I watched for it, it seems to be in the same vein as Gone Home (and that’s a positive statement).  The dialog between Henry, the character you play, and his boss, Delilah, is what initially caught my attention.  There seems to be a lot of drama between those two.  Also factor in addition to the tension between these two that Henry’s still has job as a forest ranger to accomplish and that there’s a looming danger of a humongous forest fire that may cross where he is stationed at.

I don’t know when this game is scheduled to be released but here’s hoping before the end of 2014, because I wanna play Firewatch now!

The rat's palace this ain't

I was shown this incredibly suspenseful game called Five Nights at Freddy's.  It’s basically a point-and-click survival horror that has you playing the role as the new night watchmen for a children’s pizza restaurant.  The problem is that the animatronic animals can roam around at night with the high possibility of killing you and stuffing your carcass into one of the spare mechanical costumes.  It’s a game, at the minimum, worth watching videos of people playing it and getting the bejesus scared out of them.

Holly crossovers, Batman!

Finally got around to reading the first issue of Batman ’66 meets the Green Hornet.  Not that I’m a fan of the Batman television show of the sixties, but I do appreciate it from a distance.  I know the show somewhat well because I watched a lot of it when I was a kid.

Anyways, the reason why I bought it was because it was written by two people whom I appreciate greatly.  One is Kevin Smith.  Sure, he’s a big fan of Batman and knows the franchise well, but it’s the other writer that caught my attention more, Ralph Garman.  If you don’t know Ralph, his main gig is working on the Kevin and Bean morning show on KROQ in Los Angeles.  He’s is also known for doing a podcast with Kevin Smith called Hollywood Babble-On for Kevin’s SModcast network.

If you listen to either show, you’ll know Ralph is a die-hard fan of the 1960s show staring Adam West.  His knowledge for the show goes deep and I can bet money that he can win at any ’66 Batman trivia you throw at him.  Because of this, I wanted to see how a fan like Ralph would write an “episode” of a show he cherishes so much.  Without out a doubt, he pulls it off well.  From the premise of the story, to the villain, the dialog, and the narration all seem to radiate a similar vibe of what the TV show offers.

I do like the crossover with the Green Hornet.  Seems like a good choice which gives Batman not only a somewhat mirrored reflection of himself with a sidekick (and a car and a secret identity), but someone to have conversations with on the same level.

'Bout time!

I’m glad I finally got that feature going.  It’s been something I’ve been planning to do for a while.  Actually, I was hoping to start it in July, but was nervous about all the back end changes I would need to do to make it a separate type of content from the regular blog posts and with a different layout.  Speaking of which, as I said in a post shortly after this website launched, its layout and design is basically taken from another website.  This feature is also something I’m taking from that site, too.  Oh well.  They say imitation is sincerest form of flattery.  They also say good artists copy but great artists steal.  With all this theft going on, this means I could become the greatest virtuoso of all the internet.  Or that I’m the biggest dirtbag of all the internet.

But to be clear: the content is all original.  grammar, spellling errors, and all.

Something new / Strings, guitars, and gitaroos

Here’s that new piece of content I keep spouting on about.  It will be a feature that will contain a series of short write-ups for games I’ve played.  I’ll start with ones I recently played but I’m also planing to write some stuff regarding classics from the Genesis and NES eras too.  Actually, I’m hoping I’ll be able to cover a wide spectrum of games from many consoles and PC games.  I plan to keep this feature going for a while, so get used to it.  Or ignore it.  Your choice.

Gitaroo Man Lives!

Here’s the first entry of this new feature.  Starting things off easy with a rhythm game for the PSP.  I didn’t get into this game until way, way after it was released.  So long in fact that it was only five bucks used at the local game store; complete with manual and clean of any scratches and cracks.  Buying it solely only on the covert art, it turned out to be a diamond in the rough.

Most epic binge-watch ever

FXX is currently playing a marathon of The Simpsons.  What’s so epic, you ask?  Oh, nothing.  Just showing every episode ever made, is all!  That’s 552 episodes spanning across a period of 12 days!!!!  Ay Caramba!

The marathon started Thursday morning and I watched a great deal of it since Thursday afternoon.  The TV was basically fixed on FXX all weekend long.  They're showing them in order and currently on, as of Monday morning, season 9.  Today will be my last day watching this marathon as that is when I feel the show stared to drop in quality.  To be exact, in my own opinion, seasons 1-8 are gold.  Season 9 is okay, but you can tell the writing was changing for the worst; and every season after that is…well, poop.

Actually, here’s an interesting article from The Verge where they believe the show ‘jumped the shark’ and when Home turned from a “hapless father with a good heart” to a “caricature of a moron.”  I agree with the author’s theory.

I do applaud FXX for showing the episodes in their entirety.  Every episode seemed to have at least one scene that has been ripped out for syndication broadcasting, so every episode during this marathon included a nugget of content of what seems new to me because I haven’t seen those clips since they originally aired them.  FXX does get a mild jeering too as they changed the aspect ratio of the older episodes from 4:3 to 16:9 by zooming and cropping.  Anyone who doesn’t play back films in their native aspect ratios are monsters imo.  Okay, old man rant is complete.

Nerd weekend 2

How about that.  My brother went back to Frank and Sons again this weekend and bought me that Zoro poster I was talking about in the previous post.  Now I need to find a spot to hang this rad poster.

Nerd weekend

I originally wrote it off, but I was convinced by a number of people to go see Guardians of the Galaxy.  My knowledge of Marvel’s deep history of IPs is kinda shallow, so I’m unfamiliar with GotG.  The only reference I had to the series is of Rocket Raccoon as he is a playable character in Marvel vs Capcom 3.  As for the movie, I have to say that was a darn good flick.  The story keeps moving and never slows down, there’s a lot of comedy, big explosions, and great music featuring a lot of classic rock; all making for an all-around fun experience.  It’s highly recommended.

But before we went to see Guardians of the Galaxy, we went to a place I’ve always heard of but have never been to, Frank & Son.  This is truly nerdvana for both the comic book and sports crowds.  Booths are squeezed into every nook of this huge warehouse building.  Booths will include things from comic books, to toys, video games, sports collectables, art posters and art sculptures, and many other things.  Heck, there was a booth that sold nothing but Disney pins (and holy cow there was a lot).  We were there for a while, but I was disappointed I didn’t get as much as I thought I was going to.  The only item I walked out with was a book from Udon that covers the history of Sonic the Hedgehog.  I always wanted this book, and actually wanted to get it when it originally came out, but couldn’t because I was on a really tight budget at the time.  But with my wallet a little bit looser and the price of the book dropping nearly 50%, I had no reason not to get it.

My only regret was forgetting to go back to a booth that had a sweet wanted poster of Zoro from One Piece.  Oh wells, maybe next time.  All of that was on Saturday.  What did I do on Sunday?  Killed a whole afternoon playing PC games.  Let the good times roll!

And we’re back

Think of it as a grand re-opening.

A little behind schedule, but I’ve pretty much taken care of all the scary-massive changes for the CMS.  Actually, I did a bit more than what I originally planned.  Not only did I add the new stuff for upcoming content, but I also updated the CMS and fixed the home page.  You, the end user, won’t see much changed from your side, but this fix does tidy things up and makes some tasks easier to perform.

There are still some minor adjustments I need to do, so you might see some weird stuff happening to page layouts over the next few days, but content should begin to trickle back on to the way it normally is.