Make Believe

Some highlights from the past week (at least those that are fit for public consumption)…

TUESDAY
… Which was Valentine’s Day, of course. I celebrated with MK in a rather low-key fashion this time around; after dinner at Zen Palette, the plan was to check out a few shows at the UCB (which I hadn’t been in a long-ass time), but we decided to see a movie instead. Walk the Line was pretty decent… good performances, and great music, of course. I’ve always enjoyed Johnny Cash’s music, but I’m not going to lie and claim that I’m an expert on his life, nor of anyone else from his time, thought I do want to say that the scene where Elvis is hiding in the rafters eating chili fries seemed a bit, I dunno, contrived and b.s.

WEDNESDAY
… Which was movie night, and the feature was Tombstone. I’ve never been a fan of westerns, but there are a few excellent ones out there, and Tombstone is near the top of the list, mostly due to Val Kilmer’s amazing Doc Holiday (I’m actually a pretty big fan of his, ever since Top Secret, and even thought he was a really good Batman). Afterwards, we watched the last couple of episodes of Arrested Development. One featured Rob Riggle, and that was pretty awesome; its a shame he was hardly utilized on SNL last season (hence another reason why I’m so annoyed by the show).

Afterwards, I ended up getting stuck in the subway system for over an hour. As many will recall, NY and NJ got a ton of snow the previous weekend, which is an excellent excuse for the MTA to run things like complete shit, even well after the snow had melted. This time, no local trains were running, but there were no notices or announcements anywhere. I ended up asking a couple of conductors of express trains, and they were all “I don’t know, nor do I give a shit.” Again, these are the assholes who have the same exact rights as school teachers and cops. As someone noted, the reason why they have such protection is everyone wants to kill them, and my reaction to that is, if they only did their goddamn jobs, maybe everyone wouldn’t hate their guts. Anyway, this all culminated with me asking to the booth person at the Pacific Street/Atlantic Ave station if there were any local trains due, and since the answer is no, my suggestion of making an announcement to the 40+ people down there who have been waiting for a local train, and letting one express train after another pass them by (like I too had been doing for the past hour). And her response? “Its not my job to make announcements.” And not once did she look me in the eyes. I guess she was far too engrossed in her Oprah book of the month to give a shit.

THURSDAY
My SCTV volume 3 DVD set which I order from Amazon finally arrived. Now here’s the thing… usually when you order from Amazon, there’s zero hassles. Aside from the fact that whatever you buy is at a great price, they ship it nice and neat, and the item ends up at your door in a heartbeat and in great condition. But that’s provided your order from Amazon directly, because on the site you can also buy stuff from affiliate stores, and from them, you never know what you’re going to get. And it turns out, the fuckwad geniuses who I ordered from, in an effort to save me even more money I guess, decided that a box might just be a bit overkill for a deluxe 5 disc DVD set that retails for $80, and instead just dropped it in a manila envelope with zero padding. So what I got was a clump of crushed plastic and broken discs, and needless to say, I was pissed. Granted, it was only $40, and was totally covered by a gift certificate I got for Christmas, but still…. So I asked the seller for explanation for such a piss-poor transaction, and got this in return:

“man your a hard case im shure you will be judged just as hard as you judge others i have seent hundreds of packages out? all the same way this is the only one that ive got such a rood reply back on
?
just think for a moment do you think i had anything to do with how it was handled during shipping and how would you sentance me,? am i quilty in any way,? maby the one you should be angry with is the shipping company”

God I hate doing business with rednecks. At least Amazon proper came through, and there was no problems with my copy of Electroplankton which also arrived the same day.

I also considered placing an order through Play-Asia, which is online retailer that I have never had problems with, nor has anyone else, or as far I can tell. I was going to purchase Radilgy, a just released Dreamcast shooter which I have mentioned a whiles back, which had the moniker of being “the last Dreamcast game ever” for about three days. But after playing Chaos Field, which is from the same folks, I think I’m going to sit and wait. While I like the cel-shaded thing that Radilgy has going on, I’m afraid of how poorly it might play, especially since Chaos Field turned out to be a really bad Radiant Silvergun wanna-be.

But since the game is going to become super hard to acquire, like all recent Dreamcast shooters (Border Down anyone?) I maybe just say fuck it when I finally get around to picking up Ouendan. Though I just heard that a GameCube port might be happening, though I highly doubt that it would ever get passed along here in the States, and I’d much rather have another DC import than a Cube import (for perhaps obvious reasons).

Though I did do some game shopping in the real world that day (yes, I bought some more games, despite already have like 70 games which I haven’t even touched yet). I’ve mentioned a secret little treasure trove of games in the past, and I may as well give up the goods: the spot that I speak of is the Fulton Street Mall in downtown Brooklyn. There you’ll find a number of small mom and pop shops, mostly ghetto jewelry, DVD, and cell phone shops, but many also sell games. One in particular (I forget the name… though I really don’t think any of them have a real name actually) has a huge selection of old, hard to find games, all brand new, and at cheap prices. It really reminds me of the old Game Express shop which was near Penn Station in Manhattan, which used to be the go to spot, till it got shut down due to ever increasing rent (which is the reason why all the small indie game shops closed down… now all we have are shitty ass Gamestops and EBs).

I finally picked up Klonoa 2 for GBA for just $20 (it was actually $30, but I managed to talk the shop keeper down… now when was the last time anyone was able to do that at a Gamestop, eh?) at said store, and tracked down a boxed copy of Super Mario Advance 1 (SMB 2 USA) which I had never gotten and have always been looking for. I almost picked it up till I noticed something a tad bit funny with the box… same with the copy of Super Mario Advance 4 (SMB 3) right next to it…. the box art looked a bit dithered and pixelated. Closer inspection of the box revealed a muddy looking official Nintendo seal on the back, and as suspected, they were pirated games. Damn. And I was almost fooled. Plus I also hear that bootleg GBA carts are being sold at J&L in Chinatown. If there’s another reason why everyone should go to that place, there’s another one…

FRIDAY
After lunch with Dave, who passed along Graffiti Kingdom, which I received in exchange for the GameCube WarioWare game that I picked up during Toys R Us’ big $10 sale a few months back, I checked out a new game called HoopWorld, the first original game from Streamline Studios. Its an Xbox 360 Live Arcade game, and while is still quite early, it looked pretty neat. As much as I’ve bitched about the broken promises which the 360 seems to be all about, I really do like the Live Arcade and love how its opening doors for independent developers. Plus the game featured an Aztec robot, and I’m a sucker for such stuff (its the main reason why I sill play Darkstalkers), and when I mentioned it to the guys behind the games, we had a nice little chat about the Mysterious Cities of Gold.

Then in the evening, Joe treated me to dinner to celebrate my recent book deal (which I know isn’t that recent at this point, but since we’ve both so busy the past few weeks, with trips to out of state for each of us, plus a ton of things waiting for us when we each returned). June and Jay also joined us for fried chicken, and afterwards we went to Blockbuster, then to the deli for some beer, and finally back to Joe’s to watch a shitty flick and get drunk. MK had picked out Funky Monkey while at Blockbuster, which we almost got, but in the end, it was Satan’s Little Helper.

Basically, its about this dweeby kid from a sleepy little town who’s a obsessed with a video game in which the player goes killing folks for points (the game itself is this hilariously bad Flash animation, the stuff you see at Newgrounds in the lowest rated section). Its also Halloween and the kid’s, older sister is back from acting school, along with her new boyfriend, also an aspiring actor. And needless to say, like all aspiring actors, both are pretty annoying. Along for the ride is the mother, played by Amanda Plumber (doing the “sorta big star who’s in a shitty no budget horror flick cuz they need the money badly” bit) who seems drunk the entire time (she’s constantly drinking “cider”, and also always encouraging others to do so as well) and when the opportunity arises, touches her daughter inappropriately.

The action really starts up when the boyfriend decides to get a costume for the evening and takes the boy along with him. The plan is to get a devil costume, but instead decided to dress up like his abusive father, who happens to be a noted toupee salesman (who pops up in one of the many meandering subplots later on in the flick). While the guy is lost in his head, going through some issues, the kid comes across a guy dressed in a costume killing somebody (which no one pays heed to because its Halloween… wow, that’s so clever, isn’t it?!) whom he thinks is Satan. BTW, there’s tons of time when you think the word “devil” is most applicable, but everyone insists on saying “satan”. Its just one of things that just doesn’t make a damn bit of sense about the flick. Did I already mention the mom’s tendency to constantly touch her daughter’s breasts and ass for no good reason? Also, at one point the kid stumbles across his sister getting felt up by her boyfriend and gets all excited by someone touching his sister’s boobs, which he calls “boombies”.

Anyway the costumed guy, who also never says a thing, goes on a killing spree, and the kid thinks its cool (he yells out “How many points is that?” after each murder). The means of death is often pretty lame, like how he kills all the town’s cops by basically wrapping their heads up in saran wrap to suffocate them, or adding liquid plumber to the punch bowl at some party. Later on, when the costumed guy kills the kid’s dad right in front of his eyes (which features the lamest internal organs ripped from a person’s chest scene ever), the kid goes nuts and prays to God for salvation. And in a wacky turn of events, the costumed guy drops the “satan” garb and then goes around as Jesus Christ, becoming the kid’s hero once more, and then goes on another killing spree. And trust me… the film is not nearly half as cool as I’ve made it out to be. But hey, it was fun to watch and good on. Though the Heinekens certainly helped.

SATURDAY
MK & I stopped by Rocket Ship to check out some books. Got #1 and #2 of Tales Designed To Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman. Afterwards we headed to John & Marion’s. Last time we were over, they made us dinner, so this time we did the cooking. Well actually, MK did all the cooking (she made chicken marsala, which as expected was uber delicious) and I mostly just sat around and blabbed on and on. Among the many topic discussed was the various wondrous things we have both witnesses during our many treks to ICON (which as mentioned previously, I will again be speaking at on the behalf of the electronic game program… plus MK will be appearing as well for the comics side of things). John brought up the time I brushed shoulders with well noted, and extremely temperamental, science fiction author, Harlan Ellison one year while getting sandwiches in the hospitality room, and how he thought he was going to punch me in the face. Then there’s now legendary “gamer sex” panel which Dave, John, and myself attended in which girls dressed in leather gave a tongue-in-cheek advice to a packed room of guys on how they can get their girlfriend off their cases about getting sexually satisfied for just ten minutes so they can get on with their pen and paper role playing games (I don’t even know where to begin with that one). I also talked about the time I had to do a panel about the mixing of magic and technology with a angry both pirate named Locaine who was angry how no one would believe that he could shoot fireballs with his mind (he had the power, but can’t, because no one believed him, and doubt is what kills magic, or so said Locaine). And friends of mine wonder why I get so fucking jazzed for this show every year.

This of course led to a discussion about furries, which as everyone knows, is a group I do not exactly hold in the highest of regard. And I know that, at least according to some folks at Gaming Age, the feeling is mutual…

Instead of talking about them, I suggest everyone take in this BBC documentary that does an excellent job at exploring the lifestyle. I know its 30 minutes long, but trust me, its completely worth watching. The word “fascinating” doesn’t even begin to properly describe it.

SUNDAY
Like last time, MK & I spent the night at John & Marion, and also as before, they graced us with some of the best waffles know to this God’s green earth (the key it seems is turkey bacon!). Afterwards, we played Mario Tennis, some round-robin with Soul Calibur 2, plus a few races and battles in Mario Kart Double Dash.

Afterwards MK dropped me off and headed back to Jersey. Later on, Jason stopped by and helped me upgrade this site. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but this site had a new section, one for reviews. I’ve been meaning to have a more formalized section for reviews for a while now, and I guess its finally time. I’ll be concentrating on game reviews for the most part (or course) but I guess I’ll do the occasional film write up (I guess I could have kicked things off with Satan’s Little Helper, but that would be, I dunno…).

Later on, I tried to get some work done. I try to reserve Sunday evening as the time to get work done, but unfortunately, I end up spending each one trying to fix my fucking Mac. This time, updating to 10.4.5 turned my already slow system in a deadweight, which prompted me to re-install Tiger yet again (I think that officially marked my tenth reinstall). But it seems to have done little good, since my system is still uber sluggish. For the longest time I’ve been meaning to make a long, raving and ranting post entitled: Fuck Apple, but I’m going to still wait a bit, till I’ve exhausted every avenue. One major problem is with slow and unresponsive internet, but any problems related to web surfing is always tricky to diagnosis: is it my system? Or is it the site? Or is it my service provider? Or are people leeching off me? Ugh….

MONDAY
Since I woke up feeling less than hot this morning, I called out sick. I was originally going to have that “painted conversation” after work (in which I talk and the other person doesn’t respond verbally, but by painting) , but it seems that Mark, the person behind the project, also has the same thing, so its been postponed. Instead, I spent the whole day catching up on a few things, but my computer issues haven’t helped at all. But at least I responded to the 20 or emails I’ve been meaning to for a while now, plus wrote a bit for Nerdiquette, and even sketched something for the next preview mini of Unlucky, which I hope to have ready for the NYC comic con this upcoming weekend (which seems to be becoming a bigger deal with each passing days…. though there’s still a 50/50 chance that it’ll either rock or totally suck, at least IMHO).

I’ve also tried catching up on game related happenings online, but again, it hasn’t been easy with all the computer issues and all. Fucking Konami Week wrapped up on the IC just recently, and it turned out to be pretty damn awesome. Aside from getting my hands on some info on things I’ve long wondered about, mostly on Kukeiha Club, plus getting the chance to hear one of their harder to find albums, watching an impressive super play vid of Contra Hard Corps, and also catching a a Metal Gear Solid 2 commercial starring Gakt, I ended up playing a pair of bizarro titles that I had never heard of before, including one based on that shitty King Kong sequel from the 80′s, and some platformer involving a baby in a world that composed entirely of candy and baked sweets, and where you make enemies puff up when you hit them with your rattle. Its called Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa or something…

As for some stuff not related to Konami…

- Pixel, the folks behind Cave Story are working on a shooter.

- So it seems that Under Defeat really isn’t “the last Dreamcast game” after-all.

- Plus a long forgotten Dreamcast series, Power Stone, is finally getting the long overdue revival. Hopefully we’ll see a return of Tech Romancer or Rival Schools/Project Justice soon.

- Here’s a few nice new screenshot of Virtua Fighter 5 (very nice indeed)…

- There’s a new movie coming out, starring Frankie Muniz, which has been described as Speed crossed with video games.

- The military has been targeting gamers for a while now, but the Marines are trying really hard over at GameFAQs with stuff like this poll…

- By now, everyone has seen the new “edgier” look that Bomberman is featurng for his 360 debut. Well, maybe its a response of some sort, or maybe the guy behind the previous geratic Mega Man art just does this kind of thing all the time, but here’s his version of Bomberman as spotted at the GAF…

- And finally, there’s now a Flash version of Katamari Damacy.

… That’s pretty much all I could get up to. I guess maybe its finally time to get a new computer…