To Ride or Not To Ride

Ever since their inception, the whole point of video games has been to recreate a virtual world in which one could do things one normally wouldn't (nor couldn't) do.  Squashing Goombas, bombing dodongos, rushing Zerg; if any of these phrases make any sort of sense to you, then I'm sure you've spent you're fair share of time behind a controller or keyboard.  Anyway, the point is, video games were created to allow us to do the impossible in a virtual environment.  Of course, this didn't stop some developers from trying to create as realistic an experiences as humanly possible.

Which brings us to the topic of today's little temper tantrum.  Tony Hawk Ride.  If you're not familiar with the series, it's a skateboarding series in which you traverse various environments on a skateboard, searching for that ever elusive perfect score by performing tricks, stringing together combos, and generally goofing around on a skateboard.  The series began as purely trick-based, but as the franchise went on, it began to delve further and further into the ridiculous (particularly in Tony Hawk's Underground 2, in which the Jackass crew hijacked the entire game and all but ruined everything great about the first Underground).

Ride, the most recent installment, is apparently seeking to take things back to basics with perhaps the most pointless of all gaming peripherals.

It's a wireless, board-shaped controller that's essentially a skateboard without wheels.  There are sensors lining every corner of the board, which control your skater based on your own movements.  This seems like a simple enough concept (and frankly, one I'm surprised they haven't resorted to sooner), but what concerns me is execution.  Now, I'll admit, I haven't actually tried this thing yet.  I'm not about to drop $120 on a game franchise that hasn't seen a decent installment in six years.  ...Okay, Project 8 wasn't bad.

Anyway, just from looking at this thing, I can guess that the entire game must be predicated on the player's own hand-eye-foot coordination.  I imagine a veteran skateboarder like, say, Tony Hawk might be pretty good at this game.  A guy like me, who can't walk six steps without tripping over a pine cone, might have a bit of a problem.  And if the actual reviews are any indication, my assessment is perfectly accurate.  IGN refers to the game as the "skateboarding equivalent of button-mashing."  What appears to require a good bit of finesse to perfect is, in fact, a chore for the casual player and, to some extent, the hardcore gamer.  In essence, this makes Tony Hawk Ride the rare hardcore game that is only playable to someone who's hardcore at something other than gaming.

But my quibble isn't so much with the controls as the board itself.  In theory, it's not that bad an idea.  I mean, we already have fishing rods for fishing games and steering wheels for racing games, so why not a skateboard for a skateboarding game?  Well, does anyone remember an arcade game called Top Skater?

This game first appeared in arcades in 1997, and I vividly remember wasting many a dollar in an effort to figure the damn thing out.  Functionally, the two games operate the same way.  You're asked to control a stationary facsimile of a moving skateboard.  The problem with this approach is two-fold.

First, you have to maneuver the board the same way you would in real life, only in this instance the physics involved are completely different.  The primary agent involved in real skateboarding is momentum.  With Ride and Top Skater, though, it's imperative that you stay in one place.  Ride does, at least, have an advantage over Top Skater, in that it's operation is based on motion-sensors rather than mechanics.  The problem still stands, though, that you're being asked to manipulate the board in more or less the same way that you might in real life.  And you're just as likely to awkwardly trip over the board as you are to pull the tricks off effectively.  Again, it comes back to experience.  If you already know how to do this, then you're in no need of any tutorial.

Secondly, it dictates the style of gameplay.  Tony Hawk Ride's casual mode is essentially a souped-up version of Top Skater.  You're character is on-rails, so to speak, being thrust through the course by the invisible hand of Mr. Hawk himself.  According to the reviews, the free-roaming modes of the game are nigh unplayable precisely due to the awkwardness of mimicking the action of skateboarding.

Again, having not played it, I really couldn't say for myself.  So what's my point, then?  I'm not sure, exactly.  You could probably dig out a thesis for this post if you tried hard enough, but I guess what I'm more concerned with is that this once great gaming franchise has been reduced to pulling stunts like asking $120 for a gimmicky controller and a half-assed game.  It's not enough to pretend to be skateboarding.  They now want us to pay double price to pretend to pretend to skateboard.

Complain, complain, complain.....

Zombie Haiku Zen

Last month, I entered a zombie haiku contest.  Didn't think I'd win.  Multiple entries were allowed, so said the site's editor, so I sent in five.  Checked my email this morning and lo and behold I 'd won the contest.  The prize was a signed copy of this book, written by FoG's own Don Roff.  I don't know if they'll publish my zombie haiku, so I'll just post 'em:

The shamblers approach.
I cock my rifle once more,
And it's out of shells...

When bullets dry up
and the gasoline is gone,
just use a pick-axe!

"This is too much fun!"
Mike said, hacking up two more.
I think he needs help...

Cities deserted,
They've eaten everyone else.
A farm life awaits.

Dear God, it can't be...
First they learned to congregate,
Now they're on horseback!

And there you have it; five haiku about zombies that won me a book.  Also, just for fun, this entire post can be read as several haiku.

Food That Will Kill Me: The Twinkie Weiner Sandwich

In the world of junk food, there is a legend.  A concoction so equally beloved and reviled, that a simple google search will bring up hundreds of sites from people detailing their experience with the monstrosity.  I'm speaking, of course, of the Twinkie Weiner Sandwich.  Because I'm a glutton for punishment, as well as shitty food, I thought I'd try out this culinary disaster for myself.  And because I refuse to simply make one, eat it, and then tell you about it, we're going to treat it like an experiment!

1.  Define the Question: What does a Twinkie Weiner Sandwich taste like?

2.  Gather Information:  The most notable appearance of this nightmare fuel comes from the 1989 cult classic UHF.  Thanks to the powers of YouTube, we can watch Weird Al Yankovic himself prepare such a feast.



Seems straightforward enough.

3.  Form a Hypothesis:  The Twinkie Weiner Sandwich is the most disgusting invention ever to spring forth from Satan's gaping maw.

4.  Collect Data:  First thing's first.  You'll need the ingredients:

A pack of hotdogs, cheez whiz, and a box of Twinkies.  Serves eight (or nobody, depending on who you ask).  For the purposes of this experiment, and because I may not live that long, we're only going to prepare one.

 

 

 

Wrap the hotdog in a paper towel and microwave for one minute.  The hotdog may whistle and generally sound like a lobster screaming bloody murder, but this is normal.  It's just the hotdog splitting in half.

 

 

Next, split the Twinkie in half from underneath, in the shape of a hotdog bun.  You could probably just do this with your hands or a butter knife, but I decided to take the Tim Taylor approach.  WARNING: DO NOT LICK THE KNIFE WHEN YOU'RE DONE.

 

 Place the hotdog inside the Twinkie.

 

 

Next, apply the cheez whiz as desired.  I imagine you could replace cheez whiz with your condiment of choice, but I also can't imagine anything actually making this abomination any better.  If I had to guess at a more suitable replacement, I'd say...marshmallow cream?  Maybe?

 

 

And now we enjoy the fruits of the Devil's Workshop.  The only thing we're not going to follow Weird Al on is dipping the Twinkie Weiner Sandwich in coffee.  Ugh.

 

5. Analyze the Data:  The first bite yields surprising results.  It's not quite the abomination I was fearing it might be.  The intense sugar overload of the Twinkie is balanced out by the equally high sodium content of the hotdog and cheez whiz.  The result is a surprisingly smooth sandwich thatOH GOD MY INSIDES ARE SCREAMING!!!!!

 

 (Hours later)  I felt it necessary to at least finish eating the Twinkie Weiner Sandwich, which was a bit of a chore, as it was firmly in the middle of the food spectrum, between inedible and delicious. 

 

6. Interpret the Data:  After the first bite sank in, things pretty much went south.  Compared to the taste, which was surprisingly not awful, my stomach reacted with a series of pangs and gurgles which would probably translate to "What the Hell is all this???"  The digestion process is accompanied by a wave of terror that can only be explained as the body's fight-or-flight response to the hardening of one's arteries.  Once it was all gone, there was only one thing that could cleanse the palate:

7. Draw Conclusions:  I do not recommend this disgusting thing to anyone.  I fail to see how anyone, least of all Weird Al Yankovic, can stomach such garbage.

LiveBlogging Call of Duty 4

A couple days ago, I used my Twitter feed to liveblog my thoughts on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Since it was the first time I'd either A) played a Call of Duty game or B) liveblogged anything, I thought it might be fun to recount my limited thoughts on what was supposedly one of the best games of 2007/2008. For my part, I enjoyed it, and might do it again if the mood strikes. Who knows, maybe I'll turn it into a running series?

3:26 PM: Just started playing Call of Duty 4. Never played one of these before. First impression: Why play Syriana when I could just watch the DVD?

3:28 PM: Wait...I just witnessed a tertiary character's execution from a first person perspective? WTF?

3:45 PM: The "Protect person X" mission is the clear sign that a game has run out of ideas. This is only level 2.

3:47 PM: Third world country? Helicopters? Are we ripping off Black Hawk Down already??

3:49 PM: I love how I unlock achievements for doing things that the game requires me to do anyway.

3:58 PM: Wait... "1/30 of enemy intelligence retrieved"? Is this a fetch quest?? (Edit: It wasn't.)

4:09 PM: I love how for all of CoD4's supremely impressive graphics, 90% of the shrapnel flying around is still crappy 2D sprites.

4:31 PM: Stuck in a firefight at some TV station. No snarky comment for now.

4:37 PM: The game's strict "Friendly fire is bad" restriction apparently only applies to officers. Privates are fair game. Good to know.

5:11 PM: The game just quoted Robert McNamara; reminded me that he died a couple days ago. Guess I'll play this one for him today.

Early on, I made the mistake of convincing the game I was up to playing on hard mode. Eventually, I got a little too into the game and ended up getting stuck on a number of levels where, if I played the level for too long, I'd forget what I was even supposed to be doing. Suffice it to say, liveblogging was no longer the priority.

This all culminated in a mission called "One Shot, One Kill", where I botch an assassination, only to have to flee from a city's worth of soldiers with a wounded douchebag of a partner in tow. At level's end, you're tasked with holing up inside a fairground (ferris wheel and bumper cars and all), waiting for the chopper to pick you up, all the while wave upon wave of enemy soldiers keep trying to pick you off. Thanks to "Hard Mode", I got stuck on this level for a good 3 hours before giving up and taking the game back to the store with the excuse that it was 'defective'.

Stupid Call of Duty...

21st Century Uplifter

I want to share with you a story about my most adventure in buying music.  This story takes place in a Best Buy, partly because they've driven out every Mom-n-Pop music store in town, but mostly because it's where I buy most of my music anyway.

Anyway, I went to Best Buy with the intent of picking up one of two new albums from two bands that I've grown up listening to: Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown or 311's Uplifter.  Shut up, I like what I like.  The buzz surrounding the new Green Day album has been deafening.  It seemed like everywhere I looked someone was raving about it (Rob Sheffield's review seems particularly delusional), and I was already kinda sick of the constant pounding and shouting of "Know Your Enemy".  So I went into the store with two strikes against that one.

On the other hand, "Hey You" is easily the best new 311 song I've heard in five or six years.  So that's one point for 311.  The downside is that it seems no matter how hard I look, I can't find anything written about Uplifter.  Even Rolling Stone is ignoring this one, and they review everything.  So that wasn't really a good sign.  One strike against it.

Once I got to the store, my decision was pretty much made for me.  Best Buy was ALL SOLD OUT of 21st Century Breakdown, unless I wanted to buy the super-deluxe version or the LP for an extra ten bucks.  I didn't.  That sealed the deal for me.  I went to grab a copy of Uplifter, only to find that seemingly nobody had bought the dozens of copies Best Buy had.  Doesn't surprise me; nobody is promoting it, and "Hey You"'s been getting minimal radio play at best.

As a Green Day fan going all the way back to Nimrod, it kills me to say that 21st Century Breakdown is just going to have to wait.  Instead I bought Uplifter and was pleasantly surprised at it.  An album this diverse and enjoyable deserves to be heard by more people.  

So I'd like to say thank you to all the teenagers out there.  You made my purchase decision that much easier.

Crank: High Voltage

Not every movie is for every audience. That's a pretty well understood fact. Probably no other film in recent memory exemplifies that fact better than Crank: High Voltage, a film that takes every wacky excess of the original Crank, dials it up to eleven, and then sets the whole thing on fire just for kicks.

So if you've seen the poster, you pretty much know the story. Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) died. But then he got better. After falling from a helicopter at the end of the first film and bouncing off a car, Chev is scraped off the pavement by the Asian mafia. He wakes up a couple months later in a crappy operating room with an artificial heart and his own in a cooler halfway across town. The movie then follows Chev as he rampages across Los Angeles, searching for the man who stole his heart and attempting to keep his body charged any and every way possible.

The first thing to note about Crank 2 is that everybody from the original is back. And I DO mean everybody. There are cameos out the wazoo; even Efren Ramirez is back playing the psychotic twin brother of his character from the first film (and just because his character was apparently not crazy enough, they decided to give him "full body Tourette's"). The movie is full of bizarre callbacks to the first film. There are more crazy 'juicing up' sequences; there's another weird public sex scene; ridiculous escapes and shootouts; it's all here. Crank: High Voltage is pretty much everything one might expect from a sequel to a movie like Crank.

But is it a better film? Not really. Sure, it's loads more fun, it's crazier, and a hell of a lot funnier. But it doesn't really build on the foundation of the original, just continues it's mad descent into lunacy. For me, the climactic fight scene felt like a bit of a letdown. Then again, when your first film ends with the hero and villian falling out of a helicopter, you're gonna be hard pressed to top that. But damn, if they don't try. Depending on your taste for over the top, cartoony action, the final shot of the film will either leave you disgusted or laughing your ass off. I fell into the latter.

There's so much about Crank: High Voltage that I want to talk about, but I feel like mentioning any of it might spoil it for anyone else. Suffice it to say, the trailers only show a fraction of the strange things you'll encounter in this film. With an equally twisted musical score composed by Mike Patton, Crank: High Voltage moves and spazzes out like a speed freak in a candy store, and if you enjoyed the first film at all, you'll definitely get a kick outta this one. Is it great filmmaking? No. But writer/directors Neveldine and Taylor and Jason Statham know exactly what they're doing, and it's one of the most fun, aggressive, and wacked out action films ever made.

Four stars (****) out of five.

And just for fun, here's a bit of Mike Patton's score:

Observe and Report

If Judd Apatow is the proprietor of today's "Idiot manchildren growing up" comedies, NC native Jody Hill is making a name for himself with a series of "Idiot manchildren being reinforced" comedies.  Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) feels like he could be the equally disturbed younger brother of The Foot Fist Way's Fred Simmons.  But whereas Fred seemed to at least learn something from his ordeal, Ronnie's creepy worldview is not only vindicated, but frighteningly encouraged.

Ronnie is the head of security at a New Mexico shopping mall.  He spends his days pining for the use of a six-shooter while on duty, as well as Brandi (Anna Faris), the girl who works the cosmetics counter.  When a flasher starts terrorizing the mall (and the audience) with his dangly member, Ronnie takes it upon himself and his team to hunt the flasher down and protect Brandi.

What follows is Ronnie taking advantage of the situation to go on one ridiculous ego trip after another and to woo Brandi (seemingly by force).  The film is more of a disturbed character study than a plot-driven comedy.  It does bear a lot in common with The Foot Fist Way, especially in watching our hero's well-being continuously put to the test, often with violent results.  It's a film that almost forces you to root for Ronnie, because in the real world we'd probably hate this guy.

Ultimately, it's this aspect of the film that will either make or break it for you.  If you're willing to forgive some of Ronnie's more violent excesses and impulses, you'll probably have a fun afternoon at the movies.  On the other hand, you may find yourself aghast at Ronnie's behavior, especially once the real detective (Ray Liotta) arrives onto the scene, much to Ronnie's chagrin.  It's a credit to Seth Rogen that the central character's performance is as strong as it is, because the film that he finds himself in is really pretty flimsy.  

Just like with his previous film, Jody Hill seems far more interested in character than he is in plot.  The film ultimately suffers from having almost nothing to do, leaving Rogen to invent shenanigans for Ronnie to get into (the increasingly quiet shouting match with a fellow mall employee: priceless).  There are some great laughs along the way, but the film can't overcome its lack of structure to be anything other than a curiosity.  Which is a shame, because Ronnie's character arc is surprisingly strong.  It's fun seeing Seth Rogen actually play a character other than himself for once, but the film surrounding him is largely unimpressive.  Observe and Report is certainly funny, but a strong central performance does not a good film make.  

Three stars (***) out of five.

Back from the Past!

If you've ever been to Universal Studios-Orlando (pre-2007), you probably know the geeky fun of going on the Back to the Future ride. It sat along the northeastern edge of the park, housed in a huge building dubbed the Institute of Future Technology. Outside, you could get your picture taken with Doc Brown's DeLorean and um... Time...Train...thing. You know, the train from the end of Part III. I know I got my picture taken with the DeLorean when I was a kid, but I'm afraid that picture's been lost to time.

Anyway, the ride closed two years ago this week (March 30, 2007) to make way for, of all things, a ride based on The Simpsons. Of all the things that could possibly replace the Back to the Future ride, this was far from the worst, but still somewhat heartbreaking. The Simpsons isn't even a Universal property, what business do they have replacing Back to the freaking Future??

Well, what's done is done, and not you, nor I, nor anyone else will get to chase Biff through the past, the future, and elsewhere ever again. But the ride is not completely gone. Apparently all of the ride footage can be found on the newest edition of the Back to the Future DVD (still waiting on a blu-ray...). That's pretty cool. I'm sure if you thrashed yourself around on your couch like an idiot, you could replicate the feel of the ride...

But the entire point of this post is that I just discovered this on YouTube. Apparently, while standing in line for the Simpsons ride, you can see one of the video screens directly reference the fact that a Back to the Future ride once stood there:



How cool is that? And yes, that's Christopher Lloyd, still voicing Doc Brown at the age of 70. Wow, is he really that old?

Flea Market Finds #1

Oh, the countless wonderful things you can find at a flea market. I've fallen into the habit of heading out to the NC State Fairgrounds every Saturday afternoon to sift through the mass of junk and whatnots to see what I can find. In particular, I keep an eye out for derelict video games and their respective consoles. Two weeks ago I came away with a fully functional Super NES.

Today, I poked through one particular booth, when I came across some older Super NES carts. All of them sports titles, not worth the plastic they're made out of. Underneath the table, though I saw a box. Poking out of the box was the top of an NES joystick.

"I'll give you a dollar for this joystick," I said to the owner of the booth.
"Hell," he said, "I'll give you the whole box for a dollar."
"....Sold."

So I came home with my prize. Not entirely sure what it was I'd just paid for. All I knew was that I'd scored an NES QuickShot for a dollar. Good enough for me. Once I got home, I unloaded the box and found the following:

This. I paid one dollar, one hunderd pennies, for this. Let's take a closer look.


Near as I can figure it, there's two PC joysticks, two Super NES sticks, two Atari 2600 sticks, a PSX fishing rod, and an NES QuickShot. Now, I really have no use for half of these, but I'm sure I can hawk these elsewhere and make a profit (I mean, geez, I paid a dollar for all these). The PC joysticks might be dumpster fodder, though.

Ah, this. I'd have paid several dollars for one of these guys. What's best is, this looks to be in nearly perfect condition. Now I can play Game Boy games on my Super NES on my flatscreen TV! This is all more or less what I was most interested in. But wait! There's more...

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a cutting board or not. Doesn't really matter, because I fully intend on using it as such. Underneath it is some kind of poster of Franklin College (beats me) of unknown age.

Hmm. There's a picture inside of George Burns posing with no less than ten Las Vegas showgirls. This might actually be worth a read.

Hah! See what they've done there? They've taken all the 'Joy' out of the Joy of Cooking and replaced it with 'Soy'! Ho ho! ...ugh.

Um...hmm. These appear to be candles, and I'd wager they both are liquor scented, though I sincerely hope not. Not that I really have any intention of burning them. Then there's the tin, which I'm not sure what to make of. Is it an old tobacco tin? An old shaving cream tin? What? Beats me.

Also in the box was an ancient dashboard cassette player, a CD titled "Yellowman Sings the Blues", yet another game controller whose origin and use is completely unknown to me, and an apron. Now, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all this other stuff. The books and the CD I can probably hawk at a second hand store or just donate to Goodwill or something. Otherwise, I'm sure the guy was just glad somebody paid him so they could throw his junk away from him.

Oh well. I wonder what I'll find next week...

North Carolina: The Bucket State

This morning, I heard one of the most depressing, disturbing and all together strangest radio ads I've ever heard in my life.

It begins with these two vaguely familiar voices discussing all the things they want to do before they die. It then becomes apparent that these two voices are middling impersonations of Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, and that whatever they're pitching is pitched under the guise of a reference to The Bucket List.

So they're listing off all these things that are on their bucket lists, then all of a sudden a third, unrelated voice says something along the lines of "You can experience all these things, and everything else on your bucket list, right here in North Carolina."

Oh, great. IT'S AN AD FOR NORTH CAROLINA TOURISM.

If you're trying to advertise this state and all the great things one might do here, why on Earth would you want to associate it with a film -- not even a particularly good one -- all about death and dying? Why not make your slogan something like: "Make North Carolina your final destination?" Or maybe: "Take a Bucket Trip to Tarheel country!" Or better yet...