I was out on a Slurpee/junk food run a couple weeks ago, and I noticed a rather odd little treat in the impulse candy pile on the counter. It was a small basket full of tiny little... powdered donuts? Yep. Well, maybe not so much. They looked like tiny powdered donuts, but the fact of the matter is that they were marshmallows impersonating donuts.

For only a quarter a piece, I suppose it would have been impossible for me to resist buying at least one to sate my curiosity. The three available flavours included blueberry, strawberry, and lemon. I grabbed one randomly, and breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't lemon.

You know, now that I've finished that last paragraph, I can't help but feel that maybe I could have done a better job scaling the little thing. I mean, a DS card is a good comparison point (everyone's got a DS), but only now does it become so obvious that a quarter would have been the best item to use for scale. Because they cost a quarter. It would have made me look clever. The only thing Ouendan 2 does is give me geek cred.

I could have eaten 7-11's entire supply of these stupid things, and I don't think I would have ever gotten over the fact that it's a marshmallow. It's not actually powdery or anything, but my brain would not switch off the idea that it wasn't actually going to be a donut. Twice did I bite the thing, and twice was I completely thrown off by the marshmallow.

Psychological trickery aside, it wasn't bad. I mean, marshmallow is closer to the bottom of the list of my favourite substances to ingest, but the jelly contained within was a joyful treat that made up for the otherwise bland marshmallow exterior. If you absolutely love marshmallows and jelly, I suppose these would rock your world. Otherwise I'd say to spend your quarters on arcade machines, because they're on the brink of extinction, and you've gotta savour playing Metal Slug in an arcade cabinet while you still can.

I went out after work today to find some stuff. Stuff to buy. The main object of my quest was Dethklok's album, The Dethalbum. I did not find it. This is bad. My parents got me the soundtracks for the first two (original) Star Wars movies for Christmas like ten years ago, but never got me the Jedi soundtrack. Today, after years of searching, I found it. This is good. I finally got around to watching Resident Evil: Apocalypse last night. It was a little silly at some points, but overall I liked it, and decided I wanted to purchase the first RE movie. I could not find it though. This is bad. However, I was marginally surprised that Corner Gas Season 4 had snuck into stores without me noticing. This is good.

Um, I guess the moral of this story is that I really want The Dethalbum. I have it downloaded (two copies, actually), but it's a CD I kind of need to own. Have you heard the album version of "Thunderhorse"? It's like a billion times more metal than the watered-down version that's on Guitar Hero 2. But I'll warn you though, not just anybody should listen to it, because I'm pretty sure that it's so brutal that it will literally kill anyone who's not awesome enough. Oh, what the Hell? Fuck copyrights, here, download it. And now that I've done you that favour, do me one and go buy The Dethalbum. Maybe if I can convince people to buy it, nobody will sue me for putting that song there.

Oh, and if you've never heard of Dethklok... yeah...

Don't know if you caught the season premiere of Family Guy this evening. I know the world is firmly split between people who like Family Guy and people who don't, but I'm sure most everyone can agree that that was without a doubt the best episode to air since the series was revived. Possibly even the best one ever. I don't know, maybe it's because I love Star Wars, maybe it's because they managed an entire hour-long episode without a single cutaway joke (at least I didn't notice any). In any case, I thought it was wonderful. I kind of want to see them do Empire and Jedi too, but there's a really thick "don't ruin a good thing by milking it" aura around the whole thing, so probably best not to hope for that.

I guess that's probably all I've got for today. It's hard to come up with things to talk about every day. I have no idea how Matt does his countdowns and megaparties. Maybe I just need to buy more crap to spur my typing fingers on. Or maybe I shouldn't bother writing blog posts when I've got nothing to write blog posts about.

I was poking around on the articles page for no reason, and after a quick look-over of some of the mini-reviews, I discovered that I was rather harsh on Shadow of the Colossus when I reviewed it. I don't remember being that down on it, and in retrospect, I think maybe I could have been a little nicer.

I guess the main reason that I was so cold toward the game back then is because my review was based on a rushed initial playthough and a go at the easy time trials. Between now and then, I've bought the game (at $20, I definitely recommend picking it up) and played through it at least six more times.

I think the key to enjoying the game to its full potential is not to focus on getting to the end, but rather to take as long as you can to accomplish anything. While the environment doesn't offer a lot of options when it comes to goofing off, there are a couple things to do. For one, speeding toward a cliff on Agro and then leaping from him over the side is always fun. What, you think dying isn't fun? Oh, but I beg to differ. Half the fun of Shadow of the Colossus is finding new and/or higher places from where you can fling yourself to your death. Watching Wander flail hopelessly through the air only to crumple on the ground with a satisfying thud is perhaps a little sadistic, but holy cow is it ever entertaining to watch. It's like the episode of Family Guy where they move to the south. You can hear Peter lament "It's in my raccoon wounds" a million times, and it will always, always be funny.

Where climbing and deadly falls are concerned, let's not forget the crowning achievement for any Shadow of the Colossus player: climbing the Shrine. It took me many hours of effort and painful deaths, but I did it. I had to resort to a YouTube video to figure out the last step, but even though I had to enlist some help, I still felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction as I stood atop of the Shrine. And while it may seem tedious to spend like seventy hours crossing a single bridge, it's still exciting, because of all the effort it took to get to that bridge. And when you get across? Well, let's say that it's not easy to find such a good place to leap from. Setting targets helps. Once I almost landed right on Agro. Probably best that I didn't though, as the universe probably would have imploded from the occurence of a feat so near-impossible.

Of course, playing the game properly is perfectly good fun too. The thrill of single-handedly taking on a monster that's eleventy-billion times your size never dulls. Not ever. And while the music provided by the game suits the moment well enough, putting your own soundtrack to the madness can enhance the experience tenfold. I play while listening to different music every time, and the pace of the music kind of changes how I go about the battles. It's hard to explain, but it makes the experience seem a little different each time.

I guess the only thing I still hold against Shadow of the Colossus is the story. It's still totally dumb, regardless of the fact that after spending a lot of time researching it on the internet I understand it a little better. However, that tiny gripe aside, I totally have to revise my opinion on the game. It's not a renter anymore. Now that it's a Playstation Greatest Hits title, and therefore only costs $20, it's totally a buyer. I pick this one up every now and then and play through the entire game in one or two sittings. Aside from Guitar Hero, I think that Shadow of the Colossus is more than likely my most played PS2 game, and that's saying a lot considering that the first time I played it I didn't walk away with an overly positive opinion.

The (almost) greatest breakfast sandwich ever:

• Slice of buttered bread
• A layer of bacon (each layer would be 2-3 strips)
• A fried egg
• Slice of cheese
• Second layer of bacon
• Second Fried Egg
• Another slice of cheese
• Third layer of bacon
• Slice of buttered bread
• Strip of bacon on top (hold it on with a toothpick for class)

Yes, it's simple, but it's awesome. I suppose you could mix it up a bit with some sort of condiment (I like to lightly pepper the eggs), but it's still officially a work in progress. I intend to perfect this sandwich in the near future. Bigger! Badder! More bacon! Expect to hear about it when I have, or maybe not because I'll have died from a heart attack. Hey, you've gotta suffer for your art.

It's been flying on the edge of the radar since it was announced, so you may or may not have heard about Drawn to Life. If you have heard about it, you know exactly why I bought it.

Drawn to Life is, in essence, a platformer. However, the platforming part of the game is like 34% of why I enjoy it. Quite frankly, the controls are a little sluggish, and it's been painfully easy so far. But that aside, it's also a game about drawing! Yes!

As you can tell from the boxart, you get to draw in your own character, and while that's kinda neat, it also sucks a little. No matter how nice your drawing is, it will always look like shit in play, and it's animated quite poorly too. I suppose that's the price you pay for getting to draw your character though. But hey, the rest is pretty awesome! You get to draw a ton of other things, like platforms and weapons and stuff, and it's wonderful! Unlike your main character, all the other sprites come out looking great, and I could simply sit there for hours filling in the landscape with custom props, and then bouncing around and reveling in their beauty. In fact, that's basically what I've done with the game so far.

While you get to design a lot of objects from scratch, with the ability to do whatever you want inside a set frame, there are a handful of things you're provided with an outline for and can only really colour in. Of course, this is still pretty fun. It's not quite as great as drawing in an imitation Air Tikki where you're supposed to draw a cloud, it still allows for a good amount of creativity.

The music in Drawn to Life is pretty upbeat and spunky, but nothing really special. I mean, it's decent, but you could just as well turn off the volume and put on your own tunes in the background. The graphics, the ones that don't depend on the player's drawing talent, are pretty nice. Think Rocket Slime with a little more detail. The animation is very crisp, too. Not quite as smooth as you'd see in the more recent Kirby games, but the artist's effort really shows through.

As I touched on briefly, the gameplay is weaker than I'd like, but it's not unforgivably bad. The best way to describe it is to say that it plays like a good (but not great) Flash platformer. So kinda janky and amateurish, but still playable. The ability to doodle in most of the environmental objects and a ton of other stuff really makes the game worth playing for me. Did I mention there is plenty of secret crap to collect? Oh yeah, there's boatfuls. In conclusion, I think it was totally worth my $30. It's no Mario Bros game, but if I wanted a game where everything was already drawn in, I'd just play something else.

As for a score? I'd say six and a half out of ten interchangable rating doodads.

Hello. My name is Ryan. and I'm a Facebookaholic. I haven't been on Facebook for almost six days now. I think I'm making some real progress.

Seriously, I was having trouble there for a while. I'd poke around Facebook for hours on end, never really accomplishing anything. At least when I spend my Friday nights surfing Wikipedia I'm learning something. My infatuation with just being on the site was becoming a problem, because days would melt away as I poked through random groups and people's profiles. It made me late for work on one occasion. But times are going to change. I don't even know why I was on there in the first place. I'm a loner. I don't want to make friends. Fuck that noise.

In a completely unrealted story, Sam & Max kicks ass. It's nice to see that people can still make quality adventure games. The fact that I laughed more during the first half of the first episode than I have at anything on TV lately means something too. But I won't say what, because I think you should be able to draw your own conclusions. In any case, if your PC is up to it, it's $30 very well spent. If you don't enjoy it on some level, you're pretty much a waste of your parents' reproductive cells.

Hmmm. It's been a busy month, sort of. Busier week too. At least, I've been up to plenty; most importantly, thinking of what to say in this Band of the Month post.

A lot of people will stutter for a while, and flip-flop on the subject for a while, but if you were to ask me what my favourite band is, I'd immediately tell you that it's Queen. I listen to a couple bands more often, but I've always had a special place in my heart for Queen.

You may wonder why if Queen is my favourite band, I haven't featured them as the BotM until now. Because, quite frankly, I wanted to save them for a special occasion. And I think that special occasion took place just a couple months ago, though I didn't really realize it until late August. See, I've always liked Queen (I have all their original releases, all their live albums, and most hits compilations), but I've always fallen back on their more popular content, like "Somebody To Love" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". I had listened to all their albums, and it's easy to see that their music changed a lot over time, which is officially a good thing, but I'd always go back to A Night At The Opera or A Kind Of Magic, never really listening to the fist couple albums. Big mistake.

See, my special occasion here is that I think my taste in music has finally grown up. Lately I've been eschewing the later albums for the first two, which I've come to see as the best of them all. Songs like "Liar", "March of the Black Queen" and "The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke" now far outclass the likes of "Somebody to Love" and "Play The Game" in my opinion. I mean, I still enjoy the vast majority of Queen's work, but the early stuff is really reacting with me lately. I used to think fantasy had no business in rock, but now I've come to accept it. Perhaps even like it. An increase in Led Zeppelin intake may be behind this change in opinion.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Queen died with Freddie Mercury. Don't get me wrong, Brian and Roger still rock on, and I guess Paul Rodgers is a pretty good singer, but it's not the same. I know a lot of bands change up members all the time, but Queen was Queen for over 35 years, and without the original members, they might as well just be a different band. The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert kicked ass all over the place, but I'm a crotchety old man who hates change. So as much as I enjoy the band, that fandom lives only in memories and dusty vinyl records.

So those are the couple things I wanted to touch on. If it seems really disjointed and crappy, that's because I'm a poor writer. But I got my ideas across, and that's what I came here to do, whether they came across sloppy or not. Now go download the Queen discography. It'll take like a week because it seems like they release the same hits album under a different title every couple months (the songs are also slightly rearranged), but it'll be worth it. Or maybe just download the first album and then one hits disc, just so you can see the huge difference in musical style.

Tomorrow: Battling addiction!

It's been a long week, but finally I get to kick back for a little Labor Daybor. Third-style Private Bandetto and I will be finishing up Metroid Prime 3 with our day off, and hopefully you're doing something equally as fulfilling. If you've got nothing to do, I highly suggest entering the Coozy For Hire Anniversary Contest. There are wonderful* prizes and all you have to do is draw a comic! It'll be awesome**, really.

*Prizes may not be that wonderful

**Contest experience may not be that awesome

I don't have any idea what it was, but something was mucking up my page, making it hard to see. In any case, it's fixed now. Maybe. Onto greater things, then!

I'd like to open with this statement: I really like Metroid Prime 3. It's awesome the controls are effin' sweet, and it's very fun. Now more to the point, I think it may be a bit overrated. Everyone's just shitting themselves slathering the damn thing with far more praise than I think it really deserves. I mean, yeah, it's a well-crafted game, but it's no better than the first two once you take away the motion controls. I dunno. I'm always the first one to kiss Nintendo's ass, but really, I just don't see it as being quite as deserving of so much praise as some other games. The thing is, we knew the motion controls would rock ass for FPS games, it's just that Retro is the first developer to get them right. So, um, I don't really know where I was going with this, but I think the point is that if you take away the Wiimote and nunchuk, people wouldn't be anywhere near as excited about this game as they are. And I guess if nothing else, that proves how much that little pointer can do for games.

I guess that's actually all I had to say for today. I'm sure there was something else, but nothing's coming to me, so I'm off. Laterz.