6/30/2007 - 933444555

I just bought The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly on DVD and man, is that a great movie! It's probably the only Western I like watching (unless you consider Back to the Future Part III a Western). The director Sergio Leone was well ahead of his time in his deliberate pacing of action sequences. You can tell he inspired modern directors like Tarantino. Clint Eastwood was supremely cool in this movie that predates the "realistic" Westerns that he heralded in later years. But Eli Wallach as Tuco The Ugly definitely stole the show. Even though he's quite a nefarious character, you can't help rooting for him to get some of the gold.

Today's video parodies the famous duel of the triad at the end of the movie where Blondie, Angel Eyes, and Tuco have a showdown to see who gets the buried treasure in the cemetery. I just loved how drawn out this scene was... it comes at the end of a three-hour movie, so if it was just a quick shootout, it would never have been so satisfying. This video, however, is set in modern times, and instead of gold coins, the reward in this case is a girl's phone number. It has the same great music by Enio Morricone as the original, and it's pretty much a shot-for-shot remake of the scene.

Embedding was disabled by request, so here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhd1jNm9ZIs

6/29/2007 - My iPhone Diary

Today is iPhone day! I'm an Apple fanboy, so I wish I could have been part of those crowded lines (and being in Tucson, AZ with the 106-degree heat, that's saying a lot), but I don't have an extra $600 to burn. :( In all honesty, I don't use my cell phone too much, so as a phone, it wouldn't be worth much to me. So if they made a phone-less iPhone that didn't require a two-year plan, I'd love to replace my aging PDA even if it did cost $600.

To celebrate iPhone day, we have a video review of it by David Pogue of the New York Times. He's their technology writer and a Mac user himself. His reviews are always entertaining, combining just the right amount of humor with all those geeky details. For example, look at this video of him comparing the features of Windows Vista to those of Mac OS X. In a world of dry, boring technology reviewers, Pogue stands out with his more light-hearted take of Silicon Valley. If Justin Long didn't want to be the Mac guy in those Mac-PC commercials anymore, they should really hire David Pogue.

6/28/2007 - An Incredible Mii

One of the Nintendo Wii's greatest features is the Mii Channel, where you can create an avatar of yourself (or anyone, really) and be able to use them in some Wii games. It's so much more satisfying to play a game using a character that looks like you rather than some generic sprite. The Mii characters lack realistic figures and are cartoonish, but they're still fun to create and you can make some great caricatures with them.

The Mii creation process is very forgiving in how you place facial features so you can do some pretty wild stuff. I've seen some very accurate looking celebrity Miis and some resembling various cartoon characters. This Mii in particular is probably the most creative one I've seen, though. I didn't think something like this would be possible, but here is a Pac-Man Mii that is about to eat a ghost!



Again, I love it when people make an effort to bring a touch of retro to these newfangled systems. And Pac-Man is just about as retro as it gets.

6/27/2007 - Drama Prairie Dog

Viral video is something that I try to avoid when considering whether or not I want to put a video in the My Favorites list on YouTube (and thus, on this blog). I mean viral videos like the Star Wars Kid or the Numa Numa guy are videos that most people have already seen or have probably even seen parodies of. They've already been promoted to death on other websites or even some TV shows, so they really don't need my endorsement.

This most recent viral video outbreak showing a surprised prairie dog, though, does deserve some mention. First, it's so short that it will spread even quicker than most viral videos that are minutes in length. Second, it's so darn weird... I mean, I know it was the cameraman that spooked the prairie dog, but why did it hold that position for so long? At first, I thought the eyes might have been digitally altered, but no... those weird eyes are there in the original video. Lastly, it does meet my stringent criteria of me having to like the video even after the third watching.

6/26/2007 - Ode to Bob Barker with Adam Sandler

The Price is Right was my grandfather's favorite show, bar none. I'm pretty sure it was the show that taught him the English language. It was appointment television for him even more so than The People's Court was for the Dustin Hoffman character in Rain Man. Although I think I could do okay on the trivia game shows, I would still like to be a contestant on the Price is Right. I'd really like to try my hand at that golf game and go for a Hole in One... OR TWO!

No one can deny that the Price is Right is like most other successful games shows in that it's really the host that makes the show what it is... and Bob Barker is indeed THE MAN. Even when the contestants are going nuts or being idiots, Barker was always the gentleman and brought some real class to the show. Even though he was getting up there in age, it was sad to see him retire this past month.

Today's video is a tribute to Bob Barker by none other than Adam Sandler, whom he co-starred with in the hilarious golf movie, Happy Gilmore:

6/25/2007 - cosplay transformers

Transformers is back this summer and this time as a live action movie. I, for one, am really looking forward to it. If you haven't read my take on the original Transformers movie from 1986, it's HERE. Anyway, this year has been kinda mixed as far as movies go for me. I was going to watch all the Marvel movies, of course, starting with Ghost Rider. Boy, I should have waited for the rental for that one. Whoever thought that a middle-aged Nicolas Cage would be a good Johnny Blaze (who should be in his twenties) must've been under the influence of something. One of the frustrating things about the movie was that the director, Mark Steven Johnson, said that he was hampered by the studio when he made Daredevil and that he had more freedom in Ghost Rider. And yet, Daredevil was a LOT better movie than Ghost Rider. Ugh, I hate giving Ben Affleck any credit, but he was a lot more believable as Matt Murdock than Nic Cage as Johnny Blaze.

The second Marvel movie was Spider-Man 3, and I was really psyched for it. The first was Spider-Man was great, especially in setting up the origin of Spider-Man. The second one was a little overrated for me, but I still enjoyed it and it had probably the greatest one-on-one fight scenes in a comic book movie. After the first two, I really trusted Raimi to give us a great Part 3. Well, for me, it was good but not great. Like everyone says, it seemed like Raimi wanted it to be the last movie in a trilogy for him and threw everything at it, when he really didn't need to. I mean, it was cool seeing Gwen Stacy and Venom, but if you're not going to pay proper respects to their storylines, save them for the next movie. Also, as a semi-purist of the comics (okay, I don't know if you can be a semi-purist), I was really disappointed with the way they retconned Spidey's origin. If they're going to turn Uncle Ben's death into AN ACCIDENT, then that totally takes away Spidey's original motivation for being a hero! Ugh! Oh well, I'll still get the DVD, because it was a tour-de-force in terms of the visuals and the action.

The third Marvel movie was Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and I had lowered my expectations of it because I thought the first one was pure fluff. I really hated the lead "actors" of Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba because I thought (and still think) they didn't fit the parts. I actually had high hopes that Julian McMahon would be a good Dr. Doom, but I was disappointed there too. Well, I'm glad that they seemed to learn from a lot of the mistakes of the first movie, because the second movie was actually quite good. It's not the best superhero movie (I'd probably put it at the bottom of the first tier), but it was pretty fun. Especially during the parts where the Surfer shows up. Doug Jones deserves all the kudos he received for his kinetic performance, and I only wish that they used his voice instead of Morph-- oops, Laurence Fishburne's.

So that brings us to Transformers, which can sort-of be considered as the fourth Marvel movie of 2007 since the original Transformers cartoon was a Marvel co-production. The trailers have looked pretty good up to now, showing a lot of giant robots fighting and stuff blowing up Michael Bay style. What I'm really happy about, though, is how they've thrown a bone to the fans of the old cartoon by casting Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime. Peter did such a great job in the original cartoon and for many, he was the voice of God!

Today's video should also appeal to the old fans. It's a group of cosplayers in Transformers outfits. But these aren't ordinary costumes... after all, how could you make a Transformers costume without the ability to transform? Now, you may be thinking, "how could you make a robot costume turn into a vehicle and still have a person inside it?" Well, for these Transformers freaks (I use that term affectionately), if there's a will, there's a way:



I should have learned by now not to be amazed.

6/24/2007 - Tourette's Guy

Rated R for extreme profanity

I don't know if Tourette Syndrome is a real physical or psychological condition, but it's in Wikipedia, so that's good enough for me! And if it didn't exist, the guy in this series of videos has some kind of illness that should be named after him. Unnecessary profanity usually gives me a chuckle, so when I saw this "best of" video of the "Tourette's Guy", I just couldn't stop laughing.

Even though he's probably an unpleasant character to be around, there's something endearing about him. He's not a totally bad guy... he does say "I love you" to his ex-wife... right after calling her a "bitch" of course. I think the highlight of the video is when he's complaining to the Colgate customer service department. One piece of advice to anybody riding in a car with him... don't play any music by Sting. I didn't think that a neck brace would be any kind of flattering accessory, but for Tourette's Guy, it fits pretty well. Judging from his "exuberance", it's not hard to tell how he got that kind of neck injury.

6/23/2007 - OVER 9000 COMBOS!!!

You wanna know an easy way to make a great YouTube video? Take an already existing video that has become an internet meme, in this case a strange Dragonball Z clip (found HERE), and mash it up with another popular genre. There exists customizable rhythm games out there similar to Dance Dance Revolution, but operated by the keyboard instead. While most use popular music or vidoe game music as the soundtrack for these games, this one uses the Dragonball Z clip. I think it's even better than the original.



Uh, how many combos? OVER 9000!!!!

6/22/2007 - "You Fool!"

Hollywood Squares was one of the lamer game shows out there. It did have a simple premise, though. Complete a tic-tac-toe grid filled with mostly has-been actors or celebrities by agreeing or disagreeing with their answers to inane trivia questions. The problem is that everything is scripted down to their jokes, so you can't really tell if the "celebrities" are lying or not. To be truly successful, you'd pretty much have to actually know the answer to the question.

In this episode of Hollywood Squares, all either contestant has to do is judge whether or not comedian Gilbert Gottfried is telling the truth when answering the trivia questions. The score is tied 4-4, so this is all for the win. Here's the problem: Gilbert Gottfried is an excellent liar. If you think you recognize his voice it's because he's done so many voice overs. He's probably most famous for being the AFLAC duck. He's also on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno a lot, often "impersonating" other celebrities. I said "impersonating" in quotes because he doesn't even make an attempt to change his voice.

6/21/2007 - Moon Revenge

Is it wrong for a grown man to admit that he's watched Sailor Moon? Well, if Jedite can do it, so will I. Here was the situation: back in the mid-90's there was a serious lack of quality animation on the airwaves. Aside from the Marvel and DC cartoons, there was mainly kiddie stuff like the cartoons produced by Disney. Being a big fan of Robotech, I was intrigued by the stuff coming out of Japan. I had watched some anime movies like Akira and Fist of the North Star, but I was really hungering for an anime series I could get into.

Enter DIC, a U.S.-based animation company that saw its heyday in the late eighties. Apparently, they saw that there was a vast untapped demographic that they could appeal to: young girls or "tweens" as we call them today. Instead of coming up with their own cartoon, they decided to take the semi-lazy route and translate an already existing cartoon from overseas and put in English-dubbing. The cartoon they picked was Sailor Moon.

Without knowing the original Japanese source material, I had thought that the English dub that DIC did was pretty good. I know they had to have changed the names, but I thought that made sense. I mean, do you think American girls would identify with a girl named Usagi? Some of the finer plot points seemed weird, but I was too caught up in the action and the great animation to really nitpick it.

It turns out, though, that DIC did a horrible translating job. They censored a lot from the original source material, mostly cartoon violence and some implied homosexuality. Sailor Moon in Japan was really geared more to the adult crowd, so a lot of this risqué stuff was the norm over there. That was DIC's real mistake... trying to aim for a demographic using material never meant for that audience.

So if you're going to watch Sailor Moon, your best bet is to watch the original Japanese version. The voice acting is a lot better, there's no censorship, and the music is GREAT. Just take a look at this clip, for example. They way they synchronize the action of the animation to the background music is something you definitely won't see in American cartoons. They even have different "singers" sing as the different Sailor Scouts recall their memories with Sailor Moon. That's just awesome.

6/20/2007 - Japanese Tetris

Well, it's not exactly Tetris, but it looks just as fun. It's another one of those wacky Japanese game shows that puts its contestants into strange and hilarious situations. This particular game tests your...flexibility, I guess. If you manage to contort yourself into the shape of the opening in the oncoming wall to let it pass you, you win. It would be pretty easy if the shapes weren't so darn abnormal!

Now, why can't we have gameshows like this here in the States? Seriously, instead of all these stupid talent shows, reality shows, and trivia game shows, why can't we have something more eccentric like this? Are the networks worried that some of the more outrageous stuff gets copied at home? Perhaps they don't think there are contestants out there that are as daring as the Japanese ones. I guess they've never met college frat boys...

6/19/2007 - Kangaroo

Uh... pay attention to the kangaroo...



Butt-head: "Uh, huh-huh, huh-huh"
Beavis: "Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh"

6/18/2007 - Gnarls Barkley Crazy Theremin Jam

Have you ever heard of the theremin? Neither have I, until I watched these series of YouTube videos by "ooo6". It's apparently the only musical instrument that doesn't require it to be touched. It simply makes a humming sound when you move your hands around its antennae. It is certainly strange-sounding, almost like a disembodied voice.

What "ooo6" does with the theremin, though, is plenty cool. In this video, he substitutes the singing element of "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley with theremin sounds. It sounds so good, that you can almost hear the original lyrics in the humming. He even recreates the artificial echo in the song. I can't wait to see ooo6's future work!

6/17/2007 - LisaNova does Keira Knightley

So what's the appeal of Pirates of the Caribbean? It's not based on a book, or myth, or anything like that. It's based on a Disneyland ride. A pretty lame ride to boot. And I'm pretty sure there wasn't a pirate that acted like Keith Richards in it. Whenever a movie has to use computer graphics to animate WATER, it will lose me as a viewer.

I don't get why Johnny Depp agreed to be in these movies. I thought he was supposed to be some actor's actor who was not in the profession just to make a buck. Yeah, he got an Oscar nomination for the first one, but I doubt there will be any for the sequels. And I highly doubt he agreed to do the sequels just to hang around with Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, as I think this video pretty well sums up what kind of company they are:

6/16/2007 - Master Chief is an Alcoholic

Most of us have seen the infamous video of David Hasselhoff trying to eat a cheeseburger while drunk. Poor guy... he'd be the King of Cheese if it weren't for William Shatner. Hasselhoff may have Shatner's shamelessness for absurd cameos and guest spots, but he doesn't have Shatner's "gravitas" or loyal geek fanbase. He'll always have Knight Rider and Baywatch, but I don't see him having a character like Denny Crane. Can't blame the guy for wanting to be drunk...

Of course, if you have a video on YouTube that's had over two million hits, you're bound to be parodied. Behold, we have the star of the Halo video games, Master Chief acting exactly like Mr. Hasselhoff! Why do I find this so funny? I don't know... I'm definitely not a fanboy of Master Chief. I guess he is the gaming mascot for the new generation of gamers. I do like him in this video though... see, if Hasselhoff had a face shield on like Master Chief, he'd have an excuse to drop the burger.

6/15/2007 - Punch-Out!! Trailer

If Mario: Game Over is the greatest Nintendo skit, this is the second greatest. There are so many references to Nintendo games, it's almost impossible to count. Even the music sounds like 8-bit music on steroids. Set against the backdrop of the early NES game Punch-Out, it's supposed to be a trailer for a movie about the comeback of Little Mac, the game's hero.



And boy, was Mac little... The sprite of Little Mac had to be small, because the NES could not do the wireframe graphics of the arcade game or the transparency of the 16-bit Super Punch-Out game. The point of making your character "transparent" was to allow you to see the telegraphed moves of your opponents. This allowed you to discern their pattern and weaknesses which are the keys to beating them. While most boxers are button-mashers, the Punch-Out game was unique, challenging, and rewarding... making it one of the greatest games of all time.

This "movie trailer" was an entry into Nintendo's "Short Cuts" contest: a contest to see who could make the best amateur short film based on Nintendo games. Surprisingly, this movie did not make the top ten for people to vote on! This is an absolute travesty, and this opinion is shared by most of the comments on the video. There is nothing in this video that is provocative or unseemly, so I doubt it violated the rules in any way. That means the judges just plain did not like the movie! What a joke!

6/14/2007 - HeadOn - Apply directly to the forehead ringtone

Ah, those wacky HeadOn commercials... so cheap, but so effective with the constant repetition of the product name and how it's used. Note that it doesn't mention what the product actually does! Apparently it's a cream applied to the forehead (see, I had to use the phrase somehow) that alleviates headaches without the use of drugs. In an effort not to get sued, the advertisement never claims that the product is effective against headaches... instead, they tell you how to use it... over, and over, and over again.

So what can be of better use of this annoying repeitition than making it a ringtone? It's so darn annoying that there's no way you'd want to let the phone ring on and on. You'd want to answer it as darn fast as possible:

6/13/2007 - The Octo Stacker From Burger King

Burger King's pledge is "have it your way", right? Theoretically, you can customize your burger to how you want it. That pledge gets put to the test in this video when a gentleman decides to gorge himself with a BK Stacker that's eight stacks high. That's right: eight pieces of meat, eight pieces of bacon, and eight pieces of cheese.

It always amazes me to see such displays of gluttony like this. Be it a hot dog-eating contest or a donut-eating contest, people actually train to put extraordinary amounts of unhealthy food in their bodies just to win some prize and perhaps a world record. In this case of an "octo" Stacker, however, it's not about competitive eating. It's just somebody either needing to prove a point, or a case of the munchies. I think that "I want octo!" should be a nationwide catchphrase.



...and people wonder why starving people in Third World countries hate Americans.

6/12/2007 - 100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

What appears to be a parody of the 100 Greatest ___ Movies lists by the American Film Institute turns out to be something great. What the creator of this video has done here is to compile clips of movies where a number between 1 and 100 is spoken and then orders it like an AFI countdown. It's hard to imagine that EVERY number has been spoken on film, but this video is the proof. For example, where would the number 73 possibly come in? It turns out Steve Martin references page 73 in the movie, "The Jerk".

It's quite impressive what has been done here. The clips that are shown are also perhaps the best clips possible of what movie quotes are out there for this purpose. A lot of these are actually famous scenes or quotes from good movies. And for the "number one" movie... well, it's really the only one that's fitting of this magnificent list.

6/11/2007 - Super Mario Kart 2 player match

One of the biggest things that Nintendo has over its rivals is its use of its mascots, particularly the Mario license. For example, if it weren't for Mario being in Super Mario Kart, a lot of us probably wouldn't have discovered the game and it would have been a lost gem, or an interesting experiment or something. I mean, would you play it if it didn't have the Mario characters and was called Super Buster Kart or something?

Well, it's a good thing they didn't do that because Super Mario Kart deserves its status as one of the greatest games of all time. At the time of its release, of course, Mode-7 racers were nothing new. F-Zero came out at the launch of the Super NES, and it was pretty darn good. It wasn't designed to be a realistic racer, but without a true 3-D engine for the Super NES no racer could really be.

So when Nintendo did their next racer, they said "to hell with realism" and created a racing game where you really do battle against other players and this time with WEAPONS! And really, that is the big hook of the Mario Kart series is being able to derail your opponents with shells or bananas and other items. The best weapon, of course, would be the red shell. If you could get the timing down to select the red shell when you hit the Question Mark, you would be a god. And that's what we have in this video:



This is the famous Battle Mode of Super Mario Kart (which I believe is still the best version out there) and the Mario player here can amazing choose the red shell at will! Not only that, he fires it in a way that it doesn't hit Bowser, rather it merely circles around Bowser. Playing Mario Kart battle mode hundreds of times, I can attest as to how rare this occurs, so to see it done consistently is pretty darn spectacular.

6/10/2007 - Every Star Wars Fan's Worst Nightmare

The title to this video pretty much says it all. This was a prank pulled at the Star Wars Celebration IV convention in Los Angeles where they were celebrating the 30th anniversary since the release of Episode IV. You can bet that all the hardcore Star Wars geeks were out there, all dressed as their favorite Jedi or Sith. For someone to go out there dressed as Captain Kirk in a Jar Jar mask is the equivalent to a KKK member going to a NAACP rally... but uglier...

6/9/2007 - apple II videoclip the apple two

Back when I was in elementary school, the biggest thing in personal computing and in the schools was the Apple II. It was a multi-purpose computer that became a hit with schools and small businesses. The only thing I really remember about it was playing Oregon Trail on it and that it used floppies (when floppy disks were really floppy).

Computers back then were marvels at efficiency. Just think, the Apple II had 48 kilobytes of RAM maximum. Yes, that's kilobytes, not megabytes, and certainly not gigabytes. Compare that to today's computers where you pretty much need 1 gigabyte of memory to run Windows Vista. Of course, things were a lot simpler, not having any kind of graphical user interface at all.

That's where the programmers come in. This video shows how simple animated text can make for a good music video. This is not something you can lay out in a Macromedia Flash movie... this was written in pure BASIC, the first programming language I learned. You'll actually see the code typed out at the end of the video. As a former programmer, I know how difficult this was to pull off... especially getting the timing to work with the lyrics.

6/8/2007 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl Trailer: RETRO Version

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is perhaps the third most anticipated game behind Metroid Prime 3 (what should be the best FPS with the Wiimote) and Super Mario Galaxy (I'm not sure about the control scheme on this one, but Shigeru Miyamoto's behind it!). The first Super Smash Bros. was a big hit late in the Nintendo 64's lifespan. The Nintendo 64 wasn't known to be a system for fighting games mainly because the controller wasn't designed for them. Nintendo wanted to correct that problem with their own fighting game based on their mascots.

It was no ordinary fighting game, though... special moves weren't pulled off by keypad sequences, instead each character had their own set of special moves that were easily accessed with the combination of just one button and the direction of the analog stick. Yes, you would be using the analog stick to control the movements of the characters. This was a new concept for a fighting game as it was the first (I believe) to add how fast the character would move based on how hard you're pressing on the control stick.

Another thing that made Super Smash Bros. different was that there was no health meter. Your goal in the game is not to "kill" the opponent by taking away all their health. Instead the goal is to knock the opponents out of the arena during the fight. There is a damage counter for each player, though, and that determines how far your character moves on a single blow from the opponent.

The game started out on the Nintendo 64 as a 3-D game, and although it had a fairly low polygon count (compared to today's games of course), it was very playable and fun. I do have to wonder, though, if it would be possible to make a Super Smash Bros. completely in 2-D. That's because even though the characters and backgrounds are fully rendered 3-D objects, the gameplay itself was two-dimensional. Apparently, one person took this thought and ran with it, taking old 2-D mascot sprites and using them to remake the Super Smash Bros Brawl preview in glorious 8-bit and 16-bit graphics!



Now wouldn't it be awesome if Nintendo did something like this and release it on the Virtual Console?

6/7/2007 - Street Fighter II Playsets

Hmmm... here's one way NOT to pay tribute to a classic video game: make incredibly cheap action figures and playsets! There were many things trying to cash in on the success of Street Fighter II, and most of them were bad... really bad. There were some knockoff games like Fighter's History, which actually got sued by Capcom for being too similar. There was the American-produced cartoon with its action figures which were merely G.I. Joe figures that were re-painted. And of course we had the American-produced live-action movie, which may be a guilty pleasure, but there's a reason why you feel guilty watching it: it's bad.

Needless to say, anything that was not directly produced by Capcom or its subsidiaries just plain sucked. And this reviewer presents us with what is perhaps the worst example. These action figures look so bad, I can only conclude that they were made by the blind. These are probably mass-produced for the 99-cent stores. I hope Capcom sues somebody over this. I do enjoy this "angry" review, though... the special move exclamations with a British accent is priceless.

6/6/2007 - Bad Parents Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The scariest movie for me is still the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Despite the gore and torture fests that make up most horror movies today, there is no comparison to TCM. There is something that is so visceral about it. The documentary-style manner in which it was shot made it seem so real. From the opening shot of a decomposing corpse to the last shot of a blood-soaked Sally running from Leatherface, the horror never lets up through the whole movie. Even the beginning narration by John Laroquette sends chills down my spine.

Leatherface is quite different from the other boogeymen like Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees. All Michael and Jason do is just stalk after their victims and are practically invincible. While this may be scary in the confines of a house or small building, if the setting was a large field or an open area, you could just run away from them. Not so for Leatherface. He actually runs after his victims... with a frickin' chainsaw! And you don't just worry about Leatherface, you have his entire family too! There's the insane Hitchiker brother, who cuts himself for fun. His other brother seems like the sane one...at first! And then there's Grandpa... I went insane myself when it turned out he was actually alive!

After the first time I watched the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I had trouble sleeping. The kids in this video looked like they had no problem sleeping after watching the movie. The brave fools... they may have been able to handle the movie, but can they handle their father? I have to say that this is the coolest punishment I've ever seen:

6/5/2007 - Donkey Kong Country glitch

We all know about the minus-world in Super Mario Bros., and how to turn Elec Man's Thunder Beam into a boss-killing weapon in Mega Man by repeatedly pausing the game. These are the two of the most famous glitches in video games. I think this glitch in Donkey Kong Country will join the pantheon of famous glitches. I was going to give this video an R-rating, but you can see this kind of thing on the Discovery Channel... or in the zoo.

6/4/2007 - 80s Commercials - McDLT

Before he became George Costanza on Seinfeld, Jason Alexander starred in this 1985 commercial featuring McDonald's newest sandwich, the McDLT. Even though it's well known that Jason Alexander is a song-and-dance man, his performance here is still...unmanly...not that there's anything wrong with that! Chalk it up to those lively 80s fashion statements! Also, is it just me, or does he look like he did in that episode in Seinfeld where he had a toupee?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the McDLT, it was quite a brilliant concept at a time when fast food restaurants did not have the quick-automation techniques they have now, relying on heat lamps to keep the production line moving. Before the McDLT, burgers with lettuce and tomato were unappetizing because by the time you got the burger, the lettuce and tomato would have cooked and wilted due to the heat from the meat patty and from the heat lamps. The McDLT attempted to solve that problem with a special styrofoam container that separated the part of the hamburger with the lettuce and tomato from the other part of the burger with the meat patty. The styrofoam would act as an insulator, thus keeping "the hot side hot, and the cold side cold".

There were a couple of problems with the McDLT that ultimately lead McDonalds to discontinue it, though. First, the styrofoam packaging became out of fashion when environmentalists raised a ruckus about how it would fill landfills and not biodegrade. Second, and this was my biggest problem with it, was that they put the cheese on the COLD side! Who wants to eat cold cheese in a hot burger? Why didn't they put the cheese on the hot side where it would melt as cheese should in a cheeseburger? I can only deduce that they wanted to give you one last chance to remove the cheese because back then they did not take custom orders. I still think it was a brilliant concept and I wish they would have continued it with perhaps a cardboard box and, more importantly, with the cheese on the HOT side. Instead, they sort of repackaged it into the Big N' Tasty... ugh.

6/3/2007 - The Saga Begins

Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace is widely considered the worst of all the Star Wars movies. I probably would concur with that, but I wouldn't say it was a horrible movie. Jar Jar is certainly annoying, but I think he was less annoying than the Ewoks. At least Jar Jar was annoying on purpose! What really irks me was how they made the Jedis total stiffs. I think that's why Anakin chose the Dark Side. I mean, look how cool Darth Maul is compared to this guy:

LAME

If you think about it, there weren't any compelling characters on the side of good in the prequels. That's why I think the original trilogy owes so much of its success to Harrison Ford and the Han Solo character. In other words, the prequels are like the X-Men movies without Wolverine.

The one thing about Episode I for me that stood out was the fact that Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song about it before it came out in theaters using nothing but internet spoilers! I think that might have been the first movie to have the entire plot revealed on the internet. Weird Al's song is great, though. Set to the tune of Don McLean's "American Pie", it's a complete summary of the entire movie without reference to Jar Jar. While Weird Al did make a music video out of it, I think this is a better version:

6/2/2007 - Live Action GoldenEye 64 Recreation

A lot of people may disagree with me on this, but I think GoldenEye 007 was the best game for the Nintendo 64. Most people would put either Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time above GoldenEye in their list, but as for myself, I just don't play those games anymore. Don't get me wrong, Mario 64 was a breakthrough in terms of being the first truly playable 3-D platformer and Ocarina of Time may be the greatest Zelda game in the franchise (I'd say it's a tie with a Link to the Past), but they don't have the replayability that GoldenEye has.

I played some Wolfenstein and Doom before GoldenEye, but I couldn't really get into those games because playing them with a keyboard was very limiting. The Nintendo 64's controller may have its detractors, but it was the ideal controller for me in terms of playing a first-person shooter. I would use the control pad to move the character and the analog stick to aim. It was so natural to assign the Z-button to be the trigger. GoldenEye added something else that made it more true-to-life, the element of stealth. Being able to slap a guy to death or use a silencer to prevent others from hearing you was sheer genius. LAN parties are cool, but using the split-screen for multiplayer wasn't too shabby.

The Perfect Dark game that came after it was a great game, too, but I prefer the old-school weapons of GoldenEye. I can always rely on GoldenEye to give me a good time, and this video is a nice tribute to it:

6/1/2007 - Double Dragon 2 - FLASH Parody

The first sequels in long running franchises all have some unique quality that make them supremely awesome, or make them the black sheep in the family. Examples of the latter are Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. They may have their fans, but I'm sure very few would classify them as the best games in their respective series. More often or not, though, the second game of a series is the gem that people will continue playing and become a classic.

The best example on record would have to be Mega Man II. For me, that game just had the right amount of difficulty for someone to pick up and play over and over and have a satisfying experience each time. What made the first game unique was, of course, the ability to make each boss' weapon your own after you defeat them, and that certain bosses were weak against certain weapons. The problem was that you didn't have a save or password feature... you would have to play through an entire game to figure out what the best sequence was. With Mega Man II's password feature, you could carefully map out the stage order and backtrack if necessary to perfect your overall sequence. Also, the game just had this magical quality to it that no other Mega Man game has, and it had the best soundtrack of any 8-bit game out there.

"Part II"-fighting games also belong in the awesome list. Everybody knows what a quantum leap Street Fighter II is over the original, and the same goes for Mortal Kombat II. Like Mega Man II, I would have to say that Mortal Kombat II is the best Mortal Kombat of the series. I think even the creators of the series would agree since they made the entire Shaolin Monks game based on the storyline and universe of Mortal Kombat II. The characters in that game just seem so much more iconic, and it didn't have the overkill complexity the later games had.

That brings us to Double Dragon 2 for the NES. The original Double Dragon for the NES was a rather unique port of the very popular arcade game. It tacked on an experience-building system so that the more enemies you beat, the higher the experience you have, and fighting moves would be unlocked. To me it seemed unnecessary, but I guess the developers thought the game would be too easy if you had all the moves from the beginning. That didn't really make sense though, because the original arcade game didn't have this experience-building system and it was still a quarter muncher. What was really bad about the first NES game, though, was the lack of a two-player mode for the main game! I mean, it's called Double Dragon! One of the pioneering innovations of the arcade game was the ability to play cooperatively in a beat-em-up fashion. To take that away for the NES port was a letdown to say the least. Thank goodness they fixed that for Double Dragon 2.

I think the only true way to enjoy Double Dragon 2 for the NES is to play with a buddy. It's not that there are any fighting moves that you can cooperatively pull off in the game, or that there is some huge advantage to having an extra player (to the contrary, some parts are actually easier if there's only one player on the screen). No, it's just the experience that you have collectively in this game. Like Mega Man II, the controls are tighter, the music is better, the graphics are more vivid... and it had the same magical quality that I can't explain. Maybe this animated tribute can explain it better than I can:



Now that's some great sprite manipulation! It's also a great trip down memory lane for whoever played this classic with a buddy. Interestingly enough, some of the coop moves you see in this movie did make it to Double Dragon 3 for the NES, but that didn't save it from it's mediocrity. The Angry Video Game Nerd says all there is to say in his review.