3/21/2008 - Internet Party

I got my first real taste of the internet back when I started college in 1994. Boy those were much simpler times back then. Webpages weren't the multimedia showcases they are today, and for good reason: almost everybody relied on 28K modems to get online back then! There were only a few "go to" websites out there back then that I can remember. Yahoo! was probably the most used internet portal out there and I used AltaVista for a search engine. You would rely on newsgroups to download high-resolution images and multimedia files. Online shopping was nearly non-existent without the likes of Amazon and eBay.

A couple of years later, streaming video was popularized with RealPlayer and then the MP3 revolution changed everything in terms of digital media. Once people figured out how you could make money off the internet, everything became commercialized and the DotCom boom took hold. The bubble eventually burst along with obviously illegal ways of distributing media like Napster.

The rise of Google would herald in the era of Web 2.0, which we are still in right now. Webpages have to be interactive AND elegant now and most of the popular sites out there reflect this. Social networking is now the "in" thing now with sites like Facebook, MySpace, and even YouTube and Blogger (both owned by Google, of course). It's been a wild ride and I really can't predict what is next. But here is a cool little skit about the 2.0 sites that servers as a nice time capsule for this period:

3/4/2008 - New American Gladiators! Rejected Auditions!

Can't NBC think of anything original? First, they come out with the "new" Bionic Woman... that show was so incredibly horrible that I couldn't even watch it on mute while surfing the 'net. I'd rather pass a gall stone than watch that show again. Then there's the "new" Knight Rider. Yawn. I think there are cars out there in the real world that are more capable than the original K.I.T.T. I mean there are DVD season sets out there. Why would we want to watch these retreads when we can get the originals without the commercials?

And that brings us to American Gladiators. While not original, it's probably the most watchable of these shows. I mean if you can't wait until the Summer Olympics to see some "athletic" competition, it might as well be American Gladiators. It's just a good thing that they didn't use these Gladiator wannabes:

2/29/2008 - GAMERS ANONYMOUS

Since I'll be attending the Iron Man of Gaming 2008, I figured the best way to get back into the hardcore gaming community was to get a first-person shooter, so I went ahead and bought Call of Duty 4. I was reluctant to do so because I knew what would happen. The last time I rented a FPS, it was Resistance and I played it so much that the callous on my thumb reappeared (it appeared the first time when I was heavy into the Street Fighter games back in the SNES days).

The single-player campaign in Resistance was quite long, and the challenge level gradually got higher to where the last levels would drive you insane. And that's the perfect mix: first, it was a rental game, so I wanted desperately to finish it before I had to return it; second, it was a rewarding game... I mean the gameplay was tight and had a great presentation quality; and third, the challenging nature of the later levels would guarantee you would have to play them over and over again. Finally, add the fact that I am a type-A personality and you get one addicted player. Don't get me wrong... it was a good game and everything... it's just that playing the game for over six hours straight without even a restroom break probably wasn't very healthy.

After just two nights of playing Call of Duty 4, though, I did beat the single-player campaign (the reviews are right about its short nature). So it doesn't look like I'll be starving myself by playing this game. Although, I have yet to really get into the online multiplayer mode... so there's still a chance that I might have to enter a "gamers anonymous" program like in this skit:

2/14/2008 - Love Hurts

Cupid... what a bastard:

11/22/2007 - Tetris Skits

You know a video game has invaded the consciousness of the masses when parodies of it are presented in popular cartoons. Tetris is probably the best example because it's one of those games that, if you get addicted to it, will be an experience that will last with you and even haunt your dreams. There's just something about falling geometrical shapes that brainwashes even the strongest of minds.

9/14/2007 - Soundwave: The Touch

Rated R for using the F-Word (yeah, only three times, but that would have made Die Hard 4 a Rated R movie too)

Despite being a GREAT popcorn movie, Transformers lacked a little something that would have made it a classic. For me, I guess that it did not have enough nostalgia factor. Having Peter Cullen back as Optimus Prime was nice, but we only heard the classic transforming sound once (I thought that we should hear it every time Prime transforms). One thing they should have really done is bring back an old favorite of everybody's: Soundwave. So what if they don't make cassette player boomboxes anymore? They turned Frenzy in a CD player even though CD's are almost out of fashion these days.

Soundwave was great as Megatron's right-hand man... some would say their relationship went further than that. But the coolest thing about Soundwave was his voice. While every Transformer voice actor spoke through some kind of synthesizer to sound robotic, Soundwave sounded the most robotic. You'd recognize it instantly upon hearing it. Yeah, he couldn't do much in the action arena, but that's why he had his little henchmen cassettes.

His omission in the movie did not go unnoticed by fans, though. Here's a hilarious skit of what happened after Soundwave got rejected by Michael Bay, Inc.



Oh, and one more thing... WHY DIDN'T THEY INCLUDE THE SONG "THE TOUCH"??? Now that would have put the DVD into the "must buy" column for me. So it's a bit cheesy, but they could have at least made Bumblebee play it on the radio for like two seconds...

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!

5/31/2007 - Crazy Asian Mother

This is one of the funniest videos I've ever seen, but for those who do not have the same background as I do, they might not get the joke. It is simply a dead-on portrayal of what it's like to be a first-generation Asian-American whose parents immigrated from China so that their progeny could "live the American dream". Oh, the horror of imperfection in your scholastic duties... a B-plus! That's the greatest fear of an Asian-American student.

Forget about any kind of a social life... you'll spend every waking moment studying, practicing, memorizing for those exams that you'll have nightmares about (it's been almost 10 years, and I still have those nightmares). Because if you don't get that A, you'll pretty much be disowned by your parents, or laughed at by your siblings or cousins who did get 4.3 GPA's. You have it drilled into your mind that you'd be the first to fail in the family if you don't get all A's!

Sorry about the rant... I just had flashbacks. The scenario in this video didn't actually occur to me since I didn't get a B until my Junior year in college, but trust me... it's not too far off from what really goes on behind the curtains of a real Asian-American household.

5/6/2007 - Tetris Ninjas

I got one of the original Gameboys when it first came out, and yes, it was a frickin' brick! It was supposed to be a shrunken-down NES that you could fit into your pocket. The only thing is, if you had pants with pockets THAT BIG, you'd probably be beaten up! I'm really surprised it became a hit. It was bulky, black & white, and could not handle fast-moving graphics (everything would blur like crazy). After dropping it once, my screen would have one or two columns of pixels that became missing. Also, I got tired of it eating my AA batteries so I got an external battery pack that completely destroyed the Gameboy's portability.

It did have one thing going for it, though, and that was the pack-in game Tetris. When I first heard that a puzzle game was going to be the pack-in instead of Super Mario Land, I was scratching my head. Why would Nintendo be shooting themselves in their foot like this? The original NES packed in Super Mario Bros., and Nintendo made gaming history with it. I didn't have a PC, so I did not know anything about this Tetris phenomenon. I thought that it might have been some kind of edutainment thing that would bore me to tears. Boy, was I wrong!

The beauty of Tetris (and of other good puzzle games) is that it's so deceptively simple. Complete lines with falling blocks? Sure it sounds easy, and it is at first. As the pace gets quicker, you'll see how your hand-eye coordination skills come into play. In Game A, you're trying to outdo your High Score. In Game B, though, you're trying to complete a set number of lines with random blocks in the way at startup. You weren't any kind of a Tetris guru until you beat Game B, Level 9, High 5. It's still hard for me this day. What was cool was that you'd actually get an ending! Looking back on it now, it was correct for Nintendo to have Tetris as a pack-in game. It was fun, addictive, and its graphics were so simple that the Gameboy blurriness wasn't a factor at all.

Seeing Tetris as a skit in the Boston 2007 Anime convention has definitely brought back some flashbacks. They got every little detail right, including the music tracks (my favorite was Music-1, though) and the pause screen. The folks that come up with these skits never cease to amaze me!