Pardon our dust

New content will be nonexistent for the next two weeks or so as I'll be performing maintenance to the backend of the CMS to make way for new sections for the website.  It will also act as a learning process, so that's why it'll take some time for this to occur.

In the meantime, check out the links page or…i dunno, whatever.

UnFreshing Believable

Fast food chain Del Taco is currently celebrating their 50th anniversary.  If you’ve never been, they serve American style Mexican meals like tacos, burritos, and such.  In relation it has a two section menu that is split into a “Mexican kitchen” and an “American kitchen,” so you can order burgers and fries there as well.  I love this place.  In terms of fast food, Del Taco and Jack in the Box are my favorite places to hit up when I need a quick meal.  To celebrate, they have limited edition commemorative cups that show off their history.  With a total of 4 I currently have two of them.

In addition to the cups, their web store has shirts that sport their older logos.  This is perfect timing for me as my wardrobe is starting to look tattered and drab, so I purchased their Naugles shirt to kickstart a new set of t shirts.  To settle the confusion, Naugles was a fast food joint in the ‘70s and ‘80s that was very similar to Del Taco (a guy named Naugle used to work at Del Taco before he started his own place).  Del Taco would eventually buy the chain in the late ‘80s, so they aren’t around anymore, but my dad loved going to Naugles and I remember going there along with him.  Good times.

Sigma 6

In addition to Batman Beyond from a few posts back, another action show aired just before it.  I originally wrote it off, but after watching a few episodes I was hooked.  G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 is not your daddy’s G.I. Joe T.V. show from the ‘80s. Nay, it’s a modern revision of the series with an essence of what was hot at the time.

Based on what I’ve read, Hasbro was rebooting the G.I. Joe franchise in the mid 2000s.  In addition to the toys, a new animated series would launch to help sell the toys.  This would be Sigma 6.

The series was created by the Japanese animation studio Gonzo, so the show has the anime style to it.  The show includes characters such as Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Heavy Duty, Tunnel Rat, and Long Range.  Other characters include Kamakura and Jinx as Snake Eyes’ apprentices.

The series started as two direct to DVD movie called G.I. Joe: Spy Troops and G.I. Joe: Valor vs. Venom.  I haven’t seen them, but would like to because the television series references some events that happened in these movies.

The show lasted two seasons with a total of 26 episodes.  It basically includes what you’d want in an action show; that is if you don’t mind some of the anime type scenes and scenarios the characters sometimes find themselves in.  If this show were to ever come out on DVD as a complete series, I’d get it.

Bento-rama

I get channel NHK World in my region and I admit to watching a lot of it.  It includes many different kinds of programs that focus on Japan and how people their live their lives.  Some shows are documentaries, some are towards the arts, some on technology, food and dining, and many more.  The show I’m currently interested in the most is one called Lunch ON!  As you’d expect from that title, it’s all about lunches.  Here’s the official description from the NHK website: “Lunch ON! offers insights into working people of all kinds, by looking at their lunch. Discover what they eat as they strive to reach new heights!”

Normally a four segment show, they travel all around Japan, following busy business men, factory workers, fresh-out-of-college workers to see where they go to eat and what they like to eat.  They also go into restaurant kitchens and see what chefs cook and what they too eat for lunch.  It’s a fun show and approved by yours truly.  One interesting fact I noticed: a lot of Japanese like to eat spaghetti.  Go figure!

Shriek

The Hub Network recently played the entire series of Batman Beyond.  It was aired during the perfect time when I was eating breakfast, so I had time to watch it.  I really haven't watched the show since it originally aired on Kids’ WB back around the turn of the millennium.  This is a fantastic show to watch if you’re a fan of the latest Batman film trilogy, or just a fan of Batman in general because of its plot, characters, and the villains Batman will encounter.  Speaking of which, my favorite bad dude is one named Shriek from the episode with the same name.

"Shriek" is the tenth episode of the first season and it introduces this new supervillain to the Batman franchise.  The episode begins with Derek Powers -- he’s the top man who runs Wayne-Powers (Wayne Enterprises after it merged with Powers Technology) -- is sitting in a chair in the dark.  He hears a voice say, “It’s a neglected sense: hearing.  And it shouldn’t be because all too ofter our first warning of danger is sound.”  Powers gets up from the chair and is walking around in he dark.  He’s spooked out because he hears the sounds of a tiger growling but doesn’t know where its coming from.  Then he sees a light speeding towards him.  He hears the sound of a train whistle and yells out, “Shreeve!”

Totes magotes

Consider me the epitome of endowments today because I am a supporter of public radio.  Oh yeah, that’s right, I was so impressed with the way how WQXR got me into appreciating classical music that I decided to support them for the year.  In return, I got this incredibly rad tote bag.  This will come in handy because for the last few months (or maybe a year) I’ve been toting my home made lunches in plastic super market bags.  I think carrying my lunch like that gave me the appearance of looking pauperized.  Now I can class things up by placing those bags into the tote bag.  Consider this a fancy way of capturing two birds with one stone.

Hover! the sequel?

Well, sort of.  The 1995 game included with Windows 95 now has a kind-of remastered version for web browsers.  It was released last year from Microsoft -- the creators of the original -- and I’m happy to say this new Hover! is in the same spirit of gameplay as the original.  Same rules apply: capture your enemy’s flags before they get all of yours.  It runs at a silky smooth 60fps and can work with any web browser that supports WebGL.  New to the game is a multiplayer mode that requires you to send a generated code to others you want to play with.  Visually, it’s awesome to see they structured the levels like the original, but it’s a bummer to see they used textures that make the levels look cold and sterile.

Funny thing is that it doesn’t seem to work on Internet Explorer, but it works perfectly fine on Firefox.  D'oh!

HOT TIP: type “bambi” at the start screen before clicking anything else. ;-)

The Google-est of doodles

As the World Cup continues on, the Google doodles on their home page get wackier and wackier.  Possibly the greatest doodle I’ve ever seen was this one where two cars are passing a soccer ball between each other with their hoods flipping up to hit the ball.  That was from a few days ago, but they get weirder as one doodle has aliens watching the game to another one having the letter ‘r’ wanting to shave the beard from the letter ‘G’ in Google.  I’m guessing the Google doodle creator is going bonkers and is feeling the stress to keep up with the progression of the World Cup.

Ghost in the Sh…wait, what?

Recently got into a class-based shooter called NeoTokyo.  It’s a pretty cool game, and that’s a lot coming from someone who doesn’t care for class-based shooters, or just multiplayer games in general.  It’s a mod game that’s free to download from Steam.

Heavily inspired by anime titles like Ghost in the Shell and Akira, NeoTokyo has you in a setting that takes place 30-40 years in the future.  A failure in attempting to alter the Japanese Constitution so it can engage in offensive military actions causes a rift.  A group from the armed forces starts a coup that was close to succeeding.  To uphold the constitution and to prevent further coups, the Prime Minister forms a new branch for the Interior Ministry called the National Security Force (NSF).  A new group calling themselves JINRAI is attempting a new coup.  Clashes between these two forces are now occurring all throughout Japan and the thoughts and minds of this once stable country is now torn in two.

This game has large levels that contain a combination of closed-in hallway type sections and large open areas.  You pick to side with either JINRAI or NSF and then pick your class and weapon.  Mainly a Capture the Flag game, you hunt out for the one flag in the level that’s called a Ghost.  It’s a torso of an android, and once someone grabs it, it gains them the ability to linkup to a satellite that grants the person to see where everyone is at on the map.  The game seems well balanced and is fun to play – even though I get killed rather quickly.  There are neat gadgets to use like cloaking devices, nightvision goggles, and motionvision sensors.  And taking place in the future, each level has neat futuristic touches to them.

Don’t know how rare this is, but on my second play, a modder for the game joined our team.  Some people were slightly giddy about this.  I thought it was pretty rad.

Of small note

It was cute to see Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida doing an impression of Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono, but using an Incredible Hulk figure instead of Blanka.