mario February 2nd, 2008
 Still disheartened by those lucky Japanese kids playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl over a month ahead of us, I thought I’d console myself with a little bit of the previous entry in the series, Super Smash Bros. Melee. This was the sparkling diamond amid a sea of GameCube coal. It came out less than a month after the ‘Cube’s stateside release, and I played it almost daily for a long time. Even after unlocking all the characters and stages and sound tests, I still kept playing. The game had an amazingly well-refined balance and complexity to it that made each experience unique. I quite literally saw something new every time I played that game. Though the occasional Super Mario Sunshine or Resident Evil 4 would momentarily attract my attention, I’d always come back to Melee. I played and loved the original N64 game, but Melee surpassed it in every way. Only in the past year have I seriously neglected the game, but it wasn’t out of lack of enjoyment. My hope was to approach Brawl from a fresh perspective, untainted by Melee‘s now antiquated graphics and control scheme. I want to be on the same play level as everyone else come release day. But since release day is now as far back as March 9th, I figured there wouldn’t be much harm in a little nostalgic run-through.
So I was sad to find that my save data was corrupted.
I guess six years is a long time to continually write and rewrite to a data file, but damnit, I had a lot of data! I had amassed thousands of hours (yes, thousands) of play time, fallen countless thousands of miles, and Link had racked up an impressive KO percentage. Kind of a bummer for all that to just disappear. Guess I’ll be making backups of such things in the future.
Sigh.
[discuss]
mario January 30th, 2008
 There, I said it. I’ll even go so far as to say it again:
There is no good reason for Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s release to be delayed over a freakin’ month after the Japanese release this week.
What have we been looking at all these months on the Smash Bros. Dojo? Screenshots and videos, every single one of them containing text or spoken dialogue in English. Clearly translation has been hand in hand with game development throughout the entire process. So how come Japan gets the game in January, and we have to wait until March? I wish Nintendo would offer explanations beyond “delays in the completion”. If the game’s coming out in Japan this week, it is finished.
When Melee came out on the GameCube back in December ’01, it had been a mere two weeks since the Japanese release. Both games had the option to switch languages. I can’t understand what the holdup could possibly be getting this game stateside.
Nintendo: I was willing to put up with a several-month delay, but this latest one doesn’t even make any sense.
Also: that last statement doesn’t actually mean anything, because I’m still going to buy the game when it comes out, so obviously I’m gonna have to put up with the delays. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about the situation.
mario January 27th, 2008
After a minor plumbing emergency last night, the household was in need of some relief in the form of delicious desserts. I stepped up and threw together a great treat I’ve made maybe once or twice in my life before, a heapin’ batch of chocolate chip cloud cookies!
I’m no baking expert (cookologist? mixmaster?), so I did what I always do in such situations and googled the recipe. Found a nice one from Free Cooking Recipes, which apparently offers free cooking recipes (I chose them because the recipe was more in tune with most of the ingredients in our house at that exact moment). I got a little extra enjoyment out of the project because I can still remember when I first made and tried a cloud cookie, back in middle school cooking class. Gotta love how strongly food can be tied to memory (especially me, since I generally have lousy memory).
I was a little hasty pulling them out of the oven (a common flaw on my part when it comes to making food; I just get hungry!), so the chocolate chips didn’t all melt as much as they could have, but overall they came out pretty much like I remembered them, light and crumbly and delicious. Natalie said they looked like cat turds, but hopefully they tasted better than that. I thought they did, though I have little basis of comparison.
mario January 15th, 2008
After several weeks of feverishly rifling through all those pesky credit card offers and no-doubt meaningless “bills”, my copy of Cinematic Titanic‘s “The Oozing Skull” arrived in the mailbox today. I absolutely loved it, but I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the rather lackluster packaging, because minutiae is cool.
The disc came sealed in a paper CD sleeve covered in mailing information that I had to damage to open, and the media was all smudged up! A quick rub of the ol’ iPhone chamois made it good as new, but if EZTakes wants people to use their patented movie delivery system, they gotta work on the presentation. In their defense, they primarily appear to do video downloads with the ability to burn to DVD and print cover art from their nifty-looking client application (I thank whatever deity is listening that they had the wherewithal to make a Mac version of their app; I’m waiting, RiffTrax Player!), but this is of little consolation as I can’t figure out any way to access The Oozing Skull’s artwork. Frustrating, but I will try to keep it all in perspective, as Joel and Friends probably have little control over the distribution schema. Once they secure the rights to sell their movies as downloads, I’ll be a much happier little human (plus I’ll save $2.99, enough to buy a two-man RiffTrax!).
But yes, the movie! The Oozing Skull, originally titled “Brain of Blood” (I sure must seem precocious the way I repackage press releases so it looks like I know a lot about obscure 70s Z-movies; I’m probably just being an asshole or something), was a sight to behold. Stilted line delivery, midgetsploitation, and gobs and gobs of red paint blood. These are the elements of a great MST3K episode, so it stood to reason that it would make for equally great riffing fare for a bunch of the guys that were involved in that puppet show. And it did! Even if only in silhouette form (or perhaps because of it), I couldn’t have been happier to see Joel, Trace, Frank, J. “Elvis” (as I can only assume he is known to his friends) and Mary Jo again (though I at least got to hear her voice and read her amusing iWeb blog in recent memory), talking while the movie is playing. Don’t they realize they might miss the good stuff? (I kid, I kid) I loved the paused movie sketches, Trace’s visual gags, Josh’s theme song (which I simply must make into a fashionable ringtone soon), and Frank dropping references far over my uncultured simpleton of a head.
Though I’ve been quite happy with my RiffTraxes and my The Film Crewseses, there’s just something extra-special about seeing the folks doing the heckling. Unfortunately, Jim Mallon and Best Brains, Inc. own the trademark on people sitting down and watching a movie in a theater setting, so I was quite excited to see Joel’s clever workaround of people sitting down in office chairs and watching a movie in a non-theater setting! Obzoive!
“Come along with us, to the glorious, annual Ugly Mug Ball!” That… wasn’t from the movie, I made it up. The actual stuff is much funnier, I just love a good Summer Magic reference.
This has seriously been my one single complaint with Mike Nelson’s otherwise stellar riffing projects, so needless to say, I’m pumped about the prospect of seeing more outlines of people to go with all the talky-talking. I’m not gonna try to get in a Mike vs. Joel fight with anyone here, they’re like my Midwestern older-than-me children. I publicly claim to love them equally! And really, more making fun of movies we shouldn’t be dredging up in the first place can only be a good thing for us fans in the end.
So march onward, Cinematic Titanic guys and girl! Continue to deliver quality content, possibly with the downloads the kids are talking about these days! And maybe do more crossover work with Mike and Kevin and Bill, they’re nice guys!! We like it very much.
And yes, Josh Elvis, I do remember you.
mario January 14th, 2008
A perfectly reasonable conversation about sportsball devolves into a perfectly reasonable conversation about Air Bud movies. As they all should.
Continue Reading »
mario January 12th, 2008
Isn’t it just gorgeous?
mario January 12th, 2008
 A group of, let’s face it, insane Zelda fans at cameronbanga.com have decided to play straight through Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in the span of 48 hours! Go check out the live video feed! They’re also reading email during the event, so send them a message to show them your support, and let ’em know who sent you! They’re also accepting money donations, and whatever they don’t spend on food is going toward Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity; if you’ve got any money to spend, Child’s Play is a great cause (I’ve talked about it in years past, they donate toys and video games to children in hospitals), and this is an awesome way to support a fine charity. But we can all agree that these guys are still a little crazy.
Crazy brilliant.
Please be aware that they sometimes say naughty things in the feed. I’m not gonna hold that against them, but you kids out there should tread lightly.
[discuss]
mario January 9th, 2008
I’m not one to brag, but I consider myself to be something of an amazingly skilled artist (please note subtle sarcastic undertones). One day while bored at work (fixing computers doesn’t really tax the artistic muscles much), I noticed I had a large amount of twisty-ties at my disposal. Remembering that the characters in the excellent DS puzzle game Meteos were generally stick-figureish in design, I realized I could probably recreate one of them!
So I did! Press on to see the pic and revel in its artistic awesomeness!
Continue Reading »
mario January 1st, 2008
I am unfortunately stricken with a wide array of allergies. Pollen is the big one, but any day the wind picks up slightly, I usually have to pack the Loratadine and tissues. So any time I come across an article regarding the study of new allergy treatments, I get psyched, even if I never hear any followup ever again. Scientists at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research have pinpointed a gene (GATA-3, for you gene freaks out there) that “block[s] the development of regulatory T-cells in the immune system by locking another gene. This gene, FOXP3, is key to regulatory T cells and when it is blocked new regulatory T cells stop being produced”. The article sums up how allergies work sufficiently, so go read that for further information, but the bottom line is that they hope to learn how to build tolerance in our weak-ass immune systems. My nose’s hopes and prayers go out to you, scientist guys.
(courtesy of Science Blog)
mario January 1st, 2008
Hey all you people in California’s 15th District! You should seriously vote for Peter Myers for U.S. House of Representatives. I don’t live there anymore (District 1 in the hizzy!), but as a longtime resident of “Ol’ Fiffy” (as it is commonly known), I feel that Mr. Myers (I don’t actually call him that) would be an excellent candidate for the position. Even if you don’t reside in that particular(ly awesome) congressional district, you can help out in his grassroots campaign by clicking the following link a couple dozen times and spiking up his Google ranking:
Peter Myers for U.S. Congress
While you’re there, you can check out how he stands on various issues, read his campaign blog, and contact him to show your support! The site appears to still be a bit under construction (by cool guy Paul), so keep checking back, join the mailing list, or subscribe to an RSS feed or two. Good luck, Peter!
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