See the calendar?

Yep, it's that time of year again. I have a new theme for 2008. This year will be cute. I have no idea if it'll work but we'll see. Prepare for 25 days of pictures of things you could find in a store.


Also for Christmas stay tuned for the final two entries in Rimmi's challenge. For real. It's really going to end. Just not in time for November.

People who know me know that I have a crush on Tad Tadlock, the dancer from Design for Dreaming. I found some rare pictures of her and will most likely post them when I get the chance.

I promise no bat this month. I think I got that joke out of my system.

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #13

Today's Cartoon is The Snorks. This one I actually watched but I think it was already on the way out when I started watching it. Or maybe they put it in syndication at some poin. I'm not sure.



Before we start, we have to mention the cartoon that inspired this and may of the other cute 80s shows. While He-Man (or Thundarr) inspired all the action figure action shows, Smurf Adventures aka The Smurfs inspired all the cute, friendly shows. It lasted for a whopping 256 episodes for 10 seasons or so. The Smurfs and it's knockoffs would give us villages full of friendly creatures where each character would have it's own distinct, extreme personality. Since the creatures are so friendly, outside forces would have to play the bad guy. Other knockoffs include The Care Bears, Fraggle Rock, and Get-Along Gang.

So the Snorks are an underwater version of The Smurfs. A Snork has a big round head, no nose, and a tube coming out of their head. I actually had a snorkel that had a snork tube (or whatever they're called) on it. They come in a variety of colors, which probably match their personalities.

Our into opens with a look undersea. We see various reefs and a couple of domes where our cute collectibles no doubt hang out. Then all of a sudden we see a bunch of Snorks dance, play a harp, and do their best to have a fun time Under The Sea. Boy, do they have huge eyes. This is followed by more fish swimming away from a snork in a sub. Or I guess it's a car to them. Whatever.




The song starts and it's much more fun and upbeat then the semi-serious Smurf theme. The song invites us to the Snorks and to play with them because they're so gosh-darn fun. Maybe they don't even have a Gargamel character. I don't remember too much.

We see a pink girl snork ride a seahorse. Clearly everything that people have will have a sea version of it. Also, I bet most girl snorks will be pink and purple while other snorks will have any color that fits them. Actually, the next picture proves me wrong because a little girl snork and and elderly woman snork are both yellow. Maybe the colors are suppose to represent family. We next see a merry-go-round made up of seahorses circling an octopus. Because they're undah the sea, see?




The song gets more upbeat while we see various snorks bounce on their tubes at a hang out. It has a stage with a band on it and their are tables to the side. Given the shows target audience, I guess this is the Chuck E Cheese of the deep sea, except the Snorks are probably preteens or teens.

Next we see a yellow snork being licked by his red octopus pet. He was the head character of the show. Because of that, he was the cool character that everybody looked up to. The red octopus was his pet dog that probably acted like Dino from the Flintstones. Next we see some seaweed creatures. The bigger one is a grumpy looking guy and the smaller one is a girl picking flowers. Presumably they are father and dauther, or maybe they're a husband and wife and she just looks smaller. We all see a vampire snork swim by. No, really. I would say that he's a bad guy but I doubt any snork would be portrayed as bad without an external influence. I bet he's a wacky count character. The seaweed people are closer to actual villains.




As the theme changes a little we see various snorks sitting around a camp fire. I mean sea fire. There's a green snork that looks like Charlie Chaplin, I guess. I think he's a relative type that shows up whenever the writers need one. At this poin we get several quick images of various characters on the show shoved into our face. The first is a couple of rag snorks. The girl has a veil on her head. Let's move on without thinking about any of that. We have an eskimo snork and then we see a cast of dozen of the snorks we will actually see in most episodes. As a kid it would ignore me if an intro or a promo would promise characters that we would never see. I bet I would watch episode after episode waiting for that damn eskimo to show up.




We see the vamp snork and a double tubed snork. Since the snorks are used for movement the latter was fast as I recall. He was the Brawny Snork of the group. We see a snork with a shell on his hat. I guess he's called Oil Snork. Then various snorks play on a band, including octdog. (It wouldn't surprise me if that was the creatures name or species.)

A seabus drives by, but our snorks are riding an eel instead. Pixar totally stole this but they used a ray instead. I'm onto you, Pixar. There are more shots of happy snorks. Geez, I hope they remember to toss in a conflict at some poin. We see the seaweed creatures again and I don't know. The girl looks like she could be a friend while the grumpy seaweed looks like he could be either a minor but recurring bad guy or a Grumpy Smurf.

Finally we end with the green snork blowing bubbles that turn into the title. He was the silent snork that honked. He was probably called Honker or something. He was the mascot of the series.



A look at wiki shows a slightly more restrained entry than yesterday, but someone has got to stop listing every episode title of the series in television entries. Also, I don't care about Family Guy. Stop telling me that Family Guy made a reference to everything I liked as a kid. I don't need to know.

Ahem. Snorks were actually born in Belgium, the same place the Smurfs came from. Wow, that's a naked attempt to rip off. Hannah Barbara is responsible for this cartoon, which I didn't mention because I wasn't aware of it. Meh, the intro doesn't look too bad. The snorks don't have _____ Snork names. Their names do match their personalities. Honker is actually named Tooter.




The seaweed creatures are villains, but they were only introduced in the later, syndicated seasons. Man, imagine how exciting those first couple seasons were. The vamp snork is also a villain. Maybe it's all the Anne Rice stuff but I just don't find a vampire villain a good way to spice up a series.

The married doll snorks are actually robots. I guess. They don't look like robots but they are. Also included in the show are the main family of the main character. This was usually done because we're suppose to connect to that character. This always makes it look like the other characters lack a family, though.


Did I really write this much about a Smurf clone? I can't think of anything else to say so I'm done.

Happy Halloween Thanksgiving!

From the Shemp Bat. May his horrible, hideous face remind you of the holiday.

Tork's Picks Week 12

I'll take:

Tennessee over Detroit
Dallas over Seattle
Arizona over Philadelphia
-

Buffalo over San Francisco
Baltimore over Cincinnati
Indianapolis over Cleveland
Carolina over Green Bay
Miami over St. Louis
NO over Tampa Bay
Giants over Washington
-
San Diego over Atlanta
Pittsburgh over NE
Jets over Denver
KC over Oakland
-
Chicago over Minnesota
-
Jacksonville over Houston

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #12

Today's cartoon intro is from Ghost busters, also known as Not That Ghostbusters, The One With The Ape. I never saw an episode of this show but I was aware that it existed. I think it aired at a time I couldn't watch it.

Our intro starts with the logo for Filmation. I think Filmation was the HB of the 80s, churning out cartoons left and right. Filmation is responsible for He-Man, which I watched recently and was shocked to see how limited the animation was. It's drawn ok, but watching He-Man sloooowly swing his sword is laughable. I don't know if Filmation deserves a reputation for being bad or not, but I'm putting this cartoon on notice now.

Eh, I'll never watch an episode so I guess it doesn't matter.

The Not Real Ghost busters logo appears on the screen as the theme starts. It's the kind where they repeat the same phrase over and over.

Let's go Ghost busters.
Let's go.
Let's go!

Seven words, many of those seven repeated. At least the song isn't annoying.




After the logo we immediately see the ape ooking along to the theme. This establishes him as the Scooby character. Despite being a friggen ape, he'll probably spend the show being scared of everything. We see a picture of our heroes afterwards. The ape is looking more thoughtful, so maybe he's the Velma character combined with Scooby. We also have our two humans, one a tall blond and the other a shorter fatter pilot. Who decided that pilot goggles was a great idea for cartoon characters to wear? If there's anything that distinguishes these two guys, I won't know from the opening. The ape is holding a spatula and the guys are holding two-handed hair driers.

Then to further drive home the poin that Scooby is one of the most influential cartoon characters, this is followed by the ghost busters being chased by a ghost. If you were running for your life, would you run with your arms held in front of you as if you were trying to cop two feels?



Following this we take a look at Ghost buster HQ, which is in a mansion. So these ghostusters at least make enough money to avoid working in a firehouse. Or maybe we're not suppose to think about these things. Inside the mansion we see a skullaphone. This skull talks and the keys are on its teeth, so you can tell that this show has wacky ghouls hanging around the office of Stately Ghost buster Manor. Blond picks up the phone handle, which is a bone of course, and a ghost bursts out of the receiving end. So, does this show differentiate between good ghosts and bad ghosts? Or was that a jerk ghost pranking him, thus causing his own doom (so to speak)? This leads to the trio to shout their trademark ghost busting phrase, "BUSTED!" They then jump 20 feet in the air and high five. That should be cool. Should.




Also, the ape looks more ridiculous now. He has a hat and a camera. For some reason, he reminds me of Magilla Gorilla, but maybe that's just me.

The guys jump into a closet in the middle of the room that presumably an elevator to the basement that keeps their car. Their car is a jalopy that moves in exaggerated cartoon fashion.

We get to take a look at bad guy hq. Yes, this show has a head villain and a rotating cast of henchmen. I guess each episode the villain comes up with a plan and our heroes bust it and the episode's main henchmen. Naturally, the henchman gets away and we go back to square one each time. Before we see these ghouls the ape ooks again. Because it's so funny!




Our head villain has a giant organ (I mean for music!) He's actually a boring looking ghoul with a cape. I guess he's supposed to look a bit like Skeleton and his costume looks like fire, but he's pretty underwhelming. The henchmen range from a golden goofy cyborg skeleton, a wolfman, a safari man, a Morticia Addams lookalike (always have to have a girl even when they're useless), and a zombie Genghis Kahn. A rat ghost screws with the gold cyborg skeleton to further show that it's the joke henchman. It probably gets pushed around by the villain before he chooses a good henchman for each ep.

At this poin the intro runs out of ideas, so we see more running around, followed by the title. We finish with the rat worm ghost smacking the cyborg skeleton.


Now a trip to ye olde wiki entry. And boy is it a ridiculously long entry. The Ghost Busters cartoon is a spin off of a tv series from the seventies that was made after the popularity of the Ghostbusters movie. Ghost Busters was first, but people didn't care until Ghostbusters. The characters in this show are sons of the original cast of the tv show, except the ape. The ape is still the same. Prime Evil, the main villain, uses his organ to open a whole into another dimension to take over the world. I doubt the original series was anything like this, so I guess they felt the needed to up the ante to sell this show to kids. Our heroes had to get help occasionally from a reporter and a ghost buster from the future. Hey, it's tough to make 65 episodes and not add a dozen supporting characters!

Seriously, check out the article. It has a whole section on good guys and bad guys. It's good for people who are doing research on the show but it totally defeats the poin of a online ENCYCLOPEDIA.

If I could quit my job and work full time on this blog, I would watch crap like this and make dumb posts about it. The reason I would watch this show is to see if it tried to one-up the Real Ghostbusters at any poin. In other words, did they merely churn out 65 episodes or did they try to create their own Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and put him in a few episodes? Probably just a series of scaredy ape jokes.



Now I'm going to watch the music video for the Ghostbuster movie. That theme is the best song of the eighties, bar none. Too bad Lita knows that I'm aware of this song, because it's cheesy enough to be an entry for next July.

Video Game Nerds are Freaken Retarded

Ok, last year I made a mock post about a recent video game controversy. It was about some stupid crap about a long time video game reviewer at gamespot.com who was supposedly fired for giving a mediocre review to a game called Kane & Lynch. Eidos, the company who either made it or put it out on the market had bought up plenty of ads during the week of the game's release.

The controversy was so big that it reached gonintendo.com, the only blog I really follow about video games. I followed it for a day or so and thought it was so dumb that I wrote the above post. I mean, there were idiots who were denouncing capitalism because of a VIDEO GAME REVIEW! I don't know why we were then suddenly talking about the integrity of gamespot when it still hosted the perfect score for Chrono Cross. Please.

Anyway, I think part of the controversy was started by Penny Arcade, the stupid "gamer" comic. (My sister likes that comic and so does a lot of nerds, but I can't stand it. Everytime I sit down and give it a chance I end up reading a few comics before walking away wondering what's so great about it. Sure, it's better than the millions of knock-off comics, but I wouldn't mind seeing Penny Arcade going if it could mercifully take away CAD or Dueling Analogs.)

So anyway, they made a stink about video game journalism. Pfft. As if regular journalism was so sacred. Doesn't the phrase "video game journalism" make you want to laugh out loud?

You know what reviews I read? I read the lowest scored reviews at gamefaqs and decide if the game is right for me. A negative review can say far more than a gushing review. I've learned long ago to read video game reviews without becoming a marxist or a self-proclaimed white knight of all video games.

So now Eidos is apparently at it again. The latest Tomb Raider has apparently gotten bad reviews (I haven't checked but I already own the Wii version). So the newest Penny Arcade is about Eidos's PR guy admitting that he's trying to make the reviews seem better.

May I ask a question? Who is Penny Arcade to poin fingers? Look at this review from four years ago for Jak 2. That was a game that got everything wrong, and yet here one of the two morons are talking it up as a brave and PERFECT sequel. I could write a book about how bad that game is. Naughty Dog must have written them a big check for that review.

I was once at a gamespy thread about 25 overrated games. In the list there was an entry for Donkey Kong Country. Well, Penny Arcade didn't like that, and drew this comic. Note the dishonest bait and switch in the comic. In the first panel the moron is talking about overhyped/overrated games, which is what the list was about. In the third panel, he accuses gamespy of saying that Donkey Kong Country was a bad game. I poined out that the comic was lying in the thread connected to the post, and some outraged nerd told me that Penny was the most unbiased blah blah blah.

I told you this anecdote because I believe it represents the kind of video game nerd who reads Penny Arcade. They actually believe that they're unbiased!! HELLOOOOOOO!!!!! Let's review. Video game magazines, websites, and so forth make money through advertisements. Most of those advertisements come from video game companies trying to sell their games. If there's a conflict of interest, it comes from video game magazines giving good reviews to overhyped, heavily advertised games.

However, and here's the poin of this long, unwiedly post. Penny Arcade is not unbiased. While magazines get their revenue from ads, Penny Arcade gets its revenue from the "gamers" themselves. (Well, there are a few video game ads on the side of their webpage, but I'll politely leave them out.) Here's a store filled with tshirts and old comics. You know why gamers will become zealots over a freaken webcomic? Because the webcomic knows how to massage their sweet spots. Penny Arcade will tell them what they want to hear, so if you attack Penny Arcade, you attack them.

Look at the Wii. The Wii had a lot of people excited, so Penny Arcade jumped on the bandwagon. The PS3 was getting nothing but bad press, so the guys touted the "Wii60" as the way to go. What happened after the last E3 when most gamers were upset at Nintendo? A bright shiny comic about how rich and arrogant Nintendo was for not making the kind of games that PA fans liked. How dare Nintendo try to actually win the console generation!!!! Don't they know that they're only allowed to make hardcore games, whatever that means?!?!! (I guess the checks from Nintendo ran out.)

And excuse for me for thinking that it's hard to be unbiased when you have your own game out. At that poin it's hard not to be a part of the establishment and not some independent voice against it.

It's actually a bit scary how morons get these kind of followings. Look at the gamespy comic again. The middle panel has the character saying that he's going to remove a gamespy tool (service?) because gamespy said that one of his favorite games wasn't as great as the hype*. Now, how many people do you think read the comic religiously and decided to remove this service or badmouth gamespy? What if gamespy lost a bit of money because of this? Are they going to start catering to the PA crowd? (They did in another post about 25 biggest mistakes.) How can you bitch about gaming journalism when you go around basically threatening to take away readers from journalists because they disagree with you? (I guess this is what happen when you're fighting over people who think "Do a barrel roll!" is hilarious.)

(* - I agree with gamespy. It was just a platformer with bulgy sprites. It was ok but I never bought it because I was disappoined after renting it.)

The PA guys need to get over themselves. I like their charity and I've donated some money to it but I've never cared for the rest their work. They're not endearing me to them by being a self-annoited guardian. Many gamers will be angry at Eidos for subpar games, but guess what? Eidos will get a bad reputation and lose money until it gets better or goes the way of Acclaim. Did we need gamers to tell us that Acclaim sucked? Nope.


I will now end this post with a link to a good comic.

Dedicated to my one true love: The ladies

Women say to me, hey Mickey, what do you look for in a match?

Well, first of all I see if it can catch fire whilst struck against a cardboard box that has one of those sparky strip thingies......

And then I realize that's not what they mean.

Of course, no one ever asks me the question regardless of what it means, but , I thought I'd distract myself by waxing poetic about some of life's most pressing issues.

I'm very simple when it comes to what I look for in a woman.

I suppose I'm like most guys.
























I need a woman who can pronounce Mxyzptlk correctly. And more importantly, if the need arises, know how to trick him into saying his name backwards in order to send that tricky little bastard back to his home dimension.









All qualified ladies apply here.




And soon. Guy's been living with me for the last 5 months. He's really creeping me out.

Good Cheap Places to Eat in NYC, Part 2

Last night my teeny tiny Asian husband and I went to the Cosmic Diner on 8th Avenue and 52nd Street. I will admit that I like diner food a lot, so I'm probably biased, but there are a lot of diners around here -- so many, in fact, that I got overwhelmed and just have never bothered to actually pick one.

We chose to go to the Cosmic Diner last night because, according to Bill Corbett of Rifftrax, he and other Brains ate there at least once and their autographed picture was up on the wall. (Bill said this on the Rifftrax blog. I know he did, don't ask me to prove it.) We didn't see any autographed pictures of any Brains at all (just some dumb Broadway people), but the food there was great. We both ordered burgers -- Onil ordered the Texas burger, which came on a regular hamburger roll but topped with cheese and a fried egg, and I ordered the pizzy burger, which came on an English muffin and topped with mozzarella and marinara sauce. All in all pretty straight-forward burgers (mine especially), but they were really delicious. The meat was flavorful and the sauce on mine tasted great. We also ordered onion rings, fries and sodas, and the entire bill came to $27.25.

If you're in the culinary wasteland that is Times Square, walk a few blocks out of your way to the Cosmic Diner for an excellent burger. It's open 24 hours a day, which is great when you've been up carousing all night long and just need some fast and cheap food (it's happened to me before).

This Week In Entertainment (11/24/08)

My Pick of the Week is familiar to my friends and me. It's a port of Chrono Trigger for the DS. I won't be picking it up unless I really want to see the new dungeon, but it's still a great game. It's the only game that really does a time travel theme right. (By the way, I would have loved it if they released this for the PS early, and not on that crappy Final Fantasy Chronicles set.)

On dvd this week is Hancock. I didn't see it so I may have to pick it up. Are you aware that Will Smith is pretty much the only movie star that can consistently draw people to theaters?

I don't watch 24, but wasn't this episode (movie?) on last night?

I think we should stop pushing Christmas so early, but we don't have to become totalitarians!

I'm not a fan of Comedy Central's mock news shows but here's Steven Colbert's Christmas dvd.

For those too lazy to wrap up a DVD case of Indiana Jones 4. Just remember to unwrap the outer wrappings or you'll really show everybody how lazy you are. (I need a thesaurus.)

Shouldn't this complete Pink Panther Collection come with insulation?

Something tells me that this 3D animated sequel to The Nutty Professor isn't very good. It could be the fact that it's buried deep in the amazon listings despite having Jerry Lewis in it.

I have on idea what this is about but I like the cover.


On the Wii we have a safecracking game. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt. This game could be either fun or poinless and I hope it's the former. I assume you rotate the Wii remote with your wrist.

Tork's Picks Week 11

I'll take:

Houston over Cleveland
Dallas over San Francisco
Tampa Bay over Detroit
Tennessee over Jets
Buffalo over Kansas City
Chicago over St. Louis
New England over Miami
Minnesota over Jacksonville
Philadelphia over Baltimore
-
Denver over Oakland
Carolina over Atlanta
Giants over Arizona
Washington over Seattle
-
Indianapolis over San Diego
-
New Orleans over Green Bay


notes: I think the Redskins are going to miss the playoffs. That Dallas loss is going to cost them. Dang it.

Parodius Level 6

Wow! It's been a month or two, hasn't it? Let's hope I'm not too rusty!

At least I'm starting out in good shape. I've got a nice gun and I'm dropping lots of whales and I even have a bubble shield.

This level has a pinball theme. It's also damn difficult. It's especially hard to take screenshots with everything that's going on, but I'll try.

This picture was taken shortly after I 1, got the Engrish Megaphone of Awesome; and 2, picked up a blue powerup that cleared the enemies. That's why the screen looks so clear. Trust me, it got maddeningly full seconds later. Too full to screenshot, so that's why you get this boring pic.

See how naked and alone I look here? Yeah... I accidentally savestated myself while dying. I think a big effect of my not playing so long is I'm not as good at hitting the correct save/load keys as I used to be. I had to restart the level with no powerups. I was sad.

This part of the level looks innocent...

...But it isn't. All through this level these blue lights spawn and fly at you. They can be really hard to avoid, especially with so many on the screen at once.

I hate them.

This part was really rough, but a couple of blue Clear the Screen candies helped.

...not really much to say about the theme. It's just pinball. The drawings on the back wall are cute, I guess.


Guess who saved right here? Moments away from what appears to be the end of the level?

Oh well, I guess I'll just start again from the beginning of the lev--

asdfhaotyhahdkahghgf!!!!

Well, I just have to hit start to continue, so I guess I'll just hit start instead of--

Oh shit.


Well, here I am at the game over screen! I got first place, anyway, and I guess that's good...

Oh, who am I kidding? I suck at shooters!

This series will continue when I've worked my way back up to Level 6. Maybe by then I'll have remembered the difference between Save State and Load State. Not to mention, Select and Start. See you then!

WAWAWA Christmas update

Christmas songs 24 hours a day until sometime after Christmas.

I think we actually got a bit of reprieve. The station was threatening us to air the songs Tuesday, but it held off till today.

Meanwhile I saw some Christmas lights at the entry of a mini-mall close to wear I live. The lights were set up to resemble a polar bear, but it could have been a snow man as far as I could tell. Still, it hasn't been too bad lights-wise.

Animal Crossing: City Folk

I forgot about this game. It probably should have been the Pick of the Week, so I'll create a new post for it as a make-up.

I'll probably get this game, even if the new features are few and far between. The main selling poins will be the Wii Speak and the Miis.

For anybody who doesn't know about this series, here's something you can read about it.

This Week In Entertainment (11/17/08)

I like the Pixar formula, so I'm picking the DVD of Wall-E as the Pick of the Week even though I haven't seen it yet. Looks cute enough.

I've never heard of this guy, but I've heard about the Achmed sketch, so I guess I should watch the youtube video sometime.

Again, the franchise that wants us to believe that humanity will be super-awesome after the food synthesizer is created wants some more money from you. This time for season 3 of the original series.

False advertising!

I usually don't link to these kind of movies, but take a look at that cover!

I was going to make fun of how this reminds me of a recent 3d animated movie, but what the hell are those background characters?



In theaters we have Bolt, the latest from Disney. Note that I didn't say Pixar. That's how you miss being the Pick of the Week despite being new.

Also in theaters is that movie that has been hyped recently. I don't know anything about Twilight other than that it has vampires (so it's not scary at all) and the chick looks like the actress from the Harry Potter movies. Hermione Vs Vampires would make a descent spin-off if they used old fashion vampires.


On the Wii we have the fourth episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. This one is about Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, which is something the website promised for 2003 once. Should be a good one. I got to play episode's two and three now.

Also on the Wii is Castlevania! (Good meh!) And it's a fighting game. (Bad meh.) Don't worry folks, third party companies will figure out the system someday.

Speaking of third party companies apathy/cluelessness, just because the Wii is the least powerful system of the big three, doesn't mean you treat it like the Commodore 64! This better be the greatest Foosball game ever.

I almost missed this, which shows how far Sonic has fallen. Sonic Unleashed is no doubt the latest attempt by Sega to "go back to the series roots" and not embarrass the fans. Also, Sonic turns into a werehog for some reason. DeviantArt is going to get a lot of traffic soon.

Tork's Picks Week 11

I'll take

Atlanta over Denver
Philadelphia over Cincinnati
Chicago over Green Bay
Indianapolis over Houston
New Orleans over KC
Miami over Oakland
Giants over Baltimore
Minnesota over Tampa Bay
Carolina over Detroit
-
St. Louis over San Francisco
Arizona over Seattle
Tennessee over Jacksonville
San Diego over Pittsburgh
-
Dallas over Washington
-
Buffalo over Cleveland

The War Against the War Against the War Against Christmas update

I don't have anything against Bill O'Reilly, not that I watch his show. But his War Against the War Against Christmas is a bad idea.

Not that there isn't a War Against Christmas, but the real villains are the people who keep pushing Christmas earlier and earlier. I love Christmas time, but even I think this is ridiculous. Christmas should start on December 1st, not the weekend after the election. I swear, it's a conspiracy to make people sick of a national holiday.

They already hung up Christmas lights in the Annapolis Mall. I repeat, we just had a friggen national election! They're not even waiting for Thanksgiving anymore. I just don't get it.

We already have Hallmark stores and year long Christmas stores. Isn't that enough to tide us over until December?

I'm keeping an eye on the local adult contemporary station to see how long it takes before it goes into all Christmas song mode.

This Week In Entertainment (11/11/08)

My Pick of the Week is the 22nd Bond film. Quantum of Solace was the name of a Bond short story, but this movie is a follow up to the end of Casino Royale.


Also coming out this week is the second Hellboy movie, starring Selma Blair and some guy.

You know what you need in your life? More Donald Duck, featured in this fourth collection of Disney cartoons. Don't question my question.

The crappy looking Clone Wars is already out on DVD. I'm not sure if I can force myself to watch this movie. Do they really need to shoehorn in more stories to the second trilogy?

When I was a kid, The Cosby Show was an established hit that was up against the new comer The Simpsons. Now the 25th anniversary of Cosby is available while The Simpsons enter it's 20th season.

I got the earlier XMC seasons but I haven't watched them yet. Here's seasons four and five in one package.

Selling videos.


On the Wii we have Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. I played the original RPG but can't remember a thing about it. Something about a something. Religion was probably declared evil at some poin. The teacher was the best character.

And the world record for shovelware: The Nintendo DS! Narrowly defeating such other foes like the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Wii.

You know what we need? More World War 2 first person shooting games. I still have a Medal of Honor GC game that I bought for 10 bucks and haven't beaten yet.

Another collection of games, but Mr. Potato Head is the host so it can't be all bad.

Let's face it. Star Wars has gone from a movie franchise to a video game one. Ten years ago I wouldn't have found that depressing.

Oops

I had to take the cartoon intro post down because I wasn't going to get to it yesterday, today, or maybe even this week.

I have an excuse for being lazy this week, though. My sister is getting married on Saturday. After the weekly entertainment post I probably won't look at this blog till next Sunday.

Couple movies

I'd like to poin out a couple movies. One is already available. One will come out in a year or so.


The first one is named Possumus Woman. It's made by Ben Heckendorn, who is known of taking old video game consoles and making them into portables. I watched the first fourth of his Adventurous movie which was fun, but I never got back to finish it. Hopefully I'll get around to watching this and some of his other movies, which are all really low budget stuff. All these movies are free but you have to have broadband to download them.


The other movie is The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. It's a sequel to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, which was a fun parody of fifties sci-fi movies. Animala is in that movie, which is worth the price alone. Apparently the scientist of the first film loses faith in science, so he grows depressed. If you saw the first film, you know how he used science in every sentence, so this should be great. Unfortunately, the crew who made this movie have yet to release there second film, Trail of the Screaming Forehead, so I don't expect this to come out for a while. Oh well. It's just like how Hobgoblins 2 is still in post-production too, except that's the only way I would ever mention these two movies in the same paragraph.

Did I mention that Animala is a great character?

Tork's Picks Week 10

I forgot about the Thursday game. If I ever sit down and count my win/loss total that goes down as a lost.


I'll take

Atlanta over New Orleans
Tennessee over Chicago
Jacksonville over Detroit
Miami over Seattle
Green Bay over Minnesota
Buffalo over New England
Jets over St. Louis
Baltimore over Houston
-
Carolina over Oakland
Indianapolis over Pittsburgh
San Diego over Kansas City
Giants over Philadelphia
-
Arizona over San Francisco

This Week In Entertainment (11/3/08)

My Pick of the Week is Bender's Game, which I almost bought in a KMart in Delaware but the machine wouldn't let me. It wasn't my fault they put it on the shelf early.


Yay, more cashing in on the trilogies that already made millions of dollars.

Now you can buy the Complete Batman: The Animated Series. The later WB years weren't good, but this show was otherwise terrific.

Here's some Popeye cartoon from the early World War 2 years. Some of these cartoons have Japanese stereotypes.

I still believe that the Music City Miracle was a blown call. Also, if one of your three all-time great games was against the Texans, what does that say about your franchise?



In theaters we have Soul Men. I admire the movie studio for not immediately releasing this movie the moment after Bernie Mac died, even if it wasn't complete at the time. Shows restraint.

On home consoles we have the latest Bond game for the Wii, Quantum of Solace. I don't think we'll ever see another Goldeneye but that doesn't keep me from crossing my fingers.


On the DS we have Dragon Ball Origins. I can still remember when anime seemed fresh and non-creepy when I watched the show this is based on.

Tork's Picks Week 9

Buffalo over the Jets
Jacksonville over Cincinnati
Tennessee over Green Bay
Arizona over St. Louis
Denver over Miami
Giants over Dallas
Tampa Bay over Kansas City
Baltimore over Cleveland
Chicago over Detroit
Houston over Minnesota
Atlanta over Oakland
Philadelphia over Seattle
-
New England over Indianapolis
-
Washington over Pittsburgh