This song’s about anal

I got a frightening E-mail the other day, letting me know that Pandora would no longer be providing its service to Canadian interwebbers. I thought it was just a really bad joke, but it turns out it’s true. This makes sadness. I’m sure there’s some crazy garbage I could shove into one of my web browsers that would keep the site from detecting my location, but then I remembered that I have well over 25 gigabytes of music on my hard drive, and my CD count is coming around to about 200. So yeah. I’ll miss the occasional new bands that I like (gotta thank Pandora for Gary Hoey and The Pink Spiders), but overall, I guess sticking iTunes on random play is more than good enough to fill the void.

I knew he’d mention them eventually, but I beat Matt to the Shrek Snickerses by one day! So check that out to see what someone who knows how to work a camera thinks of them.

All the old people on the internet have really been abuzz this week. Why? Apparently everyone in the world already knew that ActRaiser is an awesome game, and they’re just delighted that it’s shown up on the Virtual Console. Me? I tried the ROM once, died and gave up. Turns out I missed out on a wicked game.So I plunked down the 800 or whatever Wii Points it cost, and I’ve got to say it’s my best purchase yet. Tecmo Bowl notwithstanding, in three days, it’s already the Virtual Console game I’ve spent the most time with, and considering I’ve got Super Mario 64, StarFox 64, and A Link to The Past on there, that’s really saying something. But yeah, ActRaiser is an Enix game, so of course it’s awesome. I’m hoping for maybe some Wonder Project J in the future… or even better – a new Wonder Project specifically for Wii! But God forbid Square-Enix makes a sequel to a totally original game when they can keep inundating the industry with more and more Final Fantasy garbage (and occasional Dragon Quest goodness).

Baby I’m on fire

You’ve probably all seen that ridiculous Shrek-endorsed peanut butter M&Ms commercial. You know the one. Yeah. That dumb one where nothing really happens. The thing they fail to mention is that Shrek slapped his face on far more candy than M&Ms. Like this Snickers bar with “Green Shrek Filling”.

Yes, I’m completely incompetent with a camera, but you should be well aware of that by now.

Despite its intense blurriness, the Snickers is, predictably, the exact same as a regular Snickers bar. Only difference is that some of the delicious insides are coloured green. And I actually had to preen away most of the rest of the bar to get as much green in that pic as I did, because there’s very little of it in there. I’m not going to complain though. I bought it mostly because I love Snickers, and only a little because I wanted to eat a Snickers with green on the inside.

Hookers!

You know what I love? I love when companies deliberately deprive themselves of my dollars by not distributing their games to more than 5 stores worldwide. I was going to pick up Odin Sphere, but it doesn’t show up at all on Best Buy, Future Shop, Microplay or Wal-Mart’s websites (or in-store, I checked). Toys ‘R’ Us most definitely doesn’t have it, and EB’s website has become even more useless than it used to be. There’s no way I’m setting foot in an EB unless I know they have what I want. The only retailer website that brings it up is HMV. And considering that I have to drive at least twenty minutes to get to an HMV which sells games, and even then they probably won’t have any copies, it really just doesn’t seem worth it. And it’s a shame, because Odin Sphere seems like a game that I would really enjoy. Oh well. Sorry Atlus, I love you and all, but you really have to work on making your games more available.

On the upside, Nintendo is localizing Picross DS! For those who didn’t know, I am addicted to Picross, and I’ve been pitching for a Picross DS since long before the handheld even came out. July 30 seems so far away… I might just be better off importing it and saving myself like a month of waiting.

Also, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks The 80’s might have a stupid name, but the track list is shaping up nicely. Poison! Quiet Riot! Eddie Money! Twisted Sister! More the Police! This is making for a very happy Ryan, I cannot lie. A little pissed that they’re probably gonna pull a GH2 and release it on the 360 a couple months later with more tracks, but I guess that if there’s any video game franchise I’m willing to pay out the ass for, it’s easily Guitar Hero.

Rock so hard I sink ships

I was going to spend the short amount of time I have before work this morning playing Pokémon, but there’s a fire in my lungs, and it just needs to be getting out. So, today, you’re going to witness one of the very few actual bloglike posts here on the TE blog. And by that, I mean it’s going to be nothing but complaining about people complaining!

We’ve all seen Spider-Man 3 by now, and half the people liked it, half of them hated it. Why so much hate? Apparently the fact that once the alien symbiote bonds with Peter Parker, he goes “emo”. And this completely ruins the movie for some people. Now, I was a little perturbed myself by Peter’s makeover scenes, but for a completely different reason. You see, the fact of the matter is, you’re all complete douchebags. Peter Parker never turns emo. Not once. He doesn’t even come close. “But he moves his hair a little emo-ish!” you scream in defense of your moronic ideal. That’s waht makes you even more of a douche. And my near-constant typos are what make me a douche.

If you think the fact that Pete pulls down some of his hair over his forehead makes him emo, you clearly have no concept of what the word means. You’re just throwing it out there because you heard someone else use it and you need to be the loudest in the sea of idiots who accuse everything of being the latest big buzzword. That sea of idiots is commonly called “the internet”.

But seriously, emo haircuts are so different that it hurts me on the inside to know that people have misconstrued Parker’s hairstyle as such. For one, emo hair is always dyed some colour. Be it jet black, jet black with red highlights, or jet black with blonde highlights, it is always dyed some colour. Peter’s hair in the movie? It’s not even an overly dark shade of brown! Fuck, you guys are stupid! Probably the worst part of this trainwreck chain of opinions is that you’re calling him emo based solely on his hair. Peter exhibits not one other trait of someone who lives the emo lifesyle at all in the movie.

Generally speaking, emo kids will haul themselves up in their room all the time so that they can do stupid emo things, like cut themselves, blog about their feelings, and write crappy poetry. Did Peter Parker do one of these things in to the movie? No! Amazing! You might say that Pete spent a lot of time in his room, but remember that it was solely to listen to that cop radio so he could find and destroy Sandman. That’s not emo, kids. That’s determination. And maybe a bit of unhealthy obsession.

We’ll also take a look at the fact that if anything, Peter has a more active social life after the symbiote bonds with him. He prowls the town, dancing quite happily (as you’ll notice, emos will always be depressed), and even though it’s a dumb scene, it totally conflicts with calling him emo. Emo kids dress like shit, and Pete’s fashion sense actually got better as he got eviler. Hell, he even pops his collar, which is totally the “in” thing to do, and you may note that no emo kid in the world would ever, under any circumstance, dress in any fashion that would be considered “in”. Especially the popped collar.

I got sidetracked by the fashion thing, but let’s get back to the social scene. If an emo’s girlfriend broke up with him, he would proabbly sit in his room, slicing his wrists to ribbons and writing shitty poetry with his blood. What did Peter Parker do? He went out and picked up a hotter girl (though nearly any girl is hotter than Kirsten Dunst), and proceeded to take her to the jazz club where his ex was working, and made a huge scene just to piss her off. Emo? Not in any way. That was just a really big dick move.

I really would like to go on some more, but for the sake of I can barely keep my ideas straight, I’ll cut out here. I’m not trying to say Spider-Man 3 is a perfect movie or anything, because it’s far from it. God knows that there are many, many problems with the film, but Peter Parker being emo is not one of them. What I am trying to say is that you should really know what you’re talking about before you go criticizing something. Peter was many things in the movie; a crybaby, a prick, and kind of a douche, but he most certainly was NOT emo.

Oh, and Spider-Man 3 is still my favourite of the trilogy based solely on Bruce Campbell’s fantastically hilarious cameo. The rest I could take or leave.

You’re gonna be mine

So I’ve got a new article out. Been a while, yes it has. But in actuality, this one isn’t really an “article” in the traditional sense. Nope, this one’s more of a satirical piece, picking specifically on GameFAQs.com users/contributors and less specifically on everything else I could think of. There’s also a large helping of self-parody and a number of pop culture references that would annoy even Seth McFarlane. So yes, it’s labelled under “pseudo-articles”, and is naught but a simple text document. And now that I’ve got the foreword down, you know what to expect. Just make sure you look at pretty much everything from a satirical standpoint, and I think you’ll enjoy. Though you may benefit from having generally spent a lot of time on blogs, message boards and GameFAQs, because it’s mostly all pointed at that crowd. And on one last note, it does get progressively worse/half-assed after Chapter 5, so don’t bother calling me on it, I already know.

Knock knock knock, before you enter

I was supposed to be heading out to the cottage this morning, but since my brother had to work until 4, the trip has been postponed for a couple hours. That means time for blogging!

Another upside to the extra time is that I was finally able to convince myself to sit down and watch Pan’s Labyrinth. I am now ashamed that it took me so many days to do so. Pan’s Labyrinth is not at all the kind of movie I normally watch, as it has a good plot, good actors, and no zombies. It’s also entirely in Spanish. But little things aside, I totally agree with everyone who gave it stars of approval. It’s a fantastic movie, with so very very much imagination and tenison and emotion and all those other good things. It’s a little on the predictable side, but then again, 97% of all movies are completely predictable. It seems that the only thing people care to do after seeing a movie is to point out its flaws, so I’m not even going to try to think of anything I didn’t like about the movie. My friends do more than enough bitching and whining about every movie under the sun to make up for my lack thereof, so don’t worry, it all balances out in the end.

Also! I guess it’s probably been around for a couple weeks now, but on Thursday I discovered that McDonald’s is pormoting a new Shrek-themed milkshake. It’s notable because it’s the Shamrock Shake! Well, sort of.

I guess to call the… whatever they call it… a Shamrock Shake would be inaccurate. But it does taste startlingly close to the minty goodness of the retired (in most places, but especially in Canada) St. Patty’s Day shake. The only difference is that in addition to the delicate mint flavouring, there’s also a tinge of chocolate in there as well, making it that much more special. In any case, it’s probably the closest I’m ever going to get to the delicious Shamrock Shake in my lifetime, and it’s likely not going to last long either, so I’m treasuring the motherfuckers like they’re gold. Sweet, minty, gold. Damn. I should probably be buying one right now. Maybe when I’m done with this post…

I think the last thing I have to mention today is that last Friday was declared “National Pick On Ryan Day” at Toys ‘R’ Us. Which is stupid, because if it’s only recognized by a select few girls/women at a single store, how can it possibly be “National”? But yeah, in all seriousness, it was pretty much the same as every other day, in that they like to pick on me all the time anyway. I guess I didn’t mind the extra attention though. Any day when girls talk to me on purpose is a good day.

How was the ride?

Err, yeah. Kinda missed the boat for May as far as blogging goes, but might as well start where most months start: Band of the Month! It’s everyone’s favourite feature!

So as I may or may not have mentioned last month, May’s BotM is Damone. It’s not really a groundbreaking edition of the feature, as Freezepop was the first BotM with a female vocalist, but it’s important nevertheless because we rarely see chick-led bands here. Why? I guess mostly because I don’t listen to many, but that’s no excuse. And really, you know that since I’ve selected Damone as Band of the Month that I like their music, so we’ll skip that part and get into something a tiny bit deeper.

Question in point: Why is it not socailly acceptable for men to like chick bands, or even bands where the lead vocalist is female? Huh? I know I get shit every time I bring up how much I like Heart and The Donnas (which was once each for the record, but that’s not important), so I’m asking why exactly that is. As far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong with chick rock bands. If I were listening to some pop starlet bullshit, then yeah, okay. I’d even be making fun of my taste in music at that point, but we’re talking about legitimate rock bands here. If you listen to Damone for a couple songs, you’ll see that behind the immediately distinguishable lady-voice are intricate drum beats, wicked riffs, and some exemplary guitar soloing. And as opposed to the Donnas for example, the rest of Damone is comprised of men, so really, why not like them?

And now that I’ve got that tame-ass rant out of the way, here are some things you can check out for more info on the band, as well as a short 30 clip, because Last.fm is a musical cheapskate (which I will be incorporating into every BotM from now on to ease up on my own incoherent rambling):

Damone’s MySpace

Wikipedia article: Damone

Damone – What We Came Here For

We both get carried away

Obviously, I picked up Pokémon Pearl when it came out on Sunday. I loves me some Pokémons, so obviously I’m enjoying it. Haven’t sunk a ton of time into it, as I’m trying to concentrate on finishing up Super Paper Mario (or at least the story) for the time being. One really cool thing about the game though, (aside from the WiFi battling and trading) is that there are parts where a computer-controlled character will team up and battle with you for a short time. I’m only so far in that I’ve seen it happen twice (and one was only for a single scripted encounter), but I’m sure it’ll happen again. I’ve always been a fan of double battles, which is probably why I hold Pokémon Colosseum in such high esteem, and it’s nice to see the formula play into the game more than it did in Ruby and Sapphire. The 3D maps never fail to impress me either. Don’t know why, but they do.

As far as Super Paper Mario goes, I’ve been making semi-steady progress. Trying to balance it with Pokémon, Dead Rising, and drawing comics has been a nightmare, but it’s getting done. Nearly finished the story (which just keeps getting better), and it would appear that there are boatloads of things to do once you’ve finished the game. Remember the “Pit of 100 Trials” from The Thousand-Year Door? The one I failed on floor 100? Yeah. There are two of them here. And word on the street is that you’ve gotta finish the second one twice. Passing the first one was a time-consuming breeze, but I got owned on floor 55 of the second. I may actually finish filling out the recipe book in this one, and collecting all the enemy/character cards will be the most expensive task in a video game ever, next to getting the Post Office Model in Animal Crossing. And those are just a couple things that are going to need completing. Let’s just forget about the treasure maps and Sammer Guys for now. Brrrrr. There’s a lot to complete in that damn game.

It’s a good thing I’ve got next week off. I have a lot of games that need finishing (starting in some cases). To list a few: Super Paper Mario, Pokémon Pearl, Guitar Hero II 360, Dead Rising, Yoshi’s Island DS, Puzzle Quest, Magical Starsign, Children of Mana, TMNT(Wii), Beyond Oasis, God of War, Baten Kaitos, Baten Kaitos Origins, Tales of Eternia, LEGO Star Wars II, Me & My Katamari, Okami, Tales of the Abyss, Stubbs the Zombie, Pikmin II and truckloads more. Thank God there aren’t any games I want coming out in the forseeable future, aside from Guitar Hero 80’s Edition (and that’s in June!). My wallet’s happy about that too!

You’re dead

And your doubts about how awesome Super Paper Mario is are now gone.

So anyhow, ummm… I dunno. I finally bought The Black Parade. I still don’t like “Welcome To The Black Parade”, but the album as a whole is pretty darn good. In fact, all the other songs are good. Figures though. Singles these days seem to often be the weakest songs a band has to offer. Also, you know, Wikipedia telling me the thing was majorly influenced by Queen (favourite band ever) was really the deciding factor there. Certainly wins a lot of points for that one.

I got some deformed Peeps. don’t know what to say. Better deforemd than retarded though, right?

One shot is all I’ve got

Like the rest of the internet, I really have to vent about how angry I am at the way Activision is handling the downloadable content for Guitar Hero 2. It’s just ridiculous. Chris Kohler complained mostly about the fact that the songs come in packs of three, and while it’s not the biggest issue for me, I do agree. Each song should be independently available, rather than packed in with two more you probably don’t want. And then Tycho really hit the money (pun intended) on how the things are way too expensive. I could see charging a dollar’s worth of Microsoft Points for one, but they average out to about $2.13, and at that point if you want them all, you’re paying way more than a game disc would cost you. Guitar Hero had 47 songs, so if they were all available in the Marketplace, it would average 7500 points, equating to around $98. RIDICULOUS. I’m not buying shit for that price. At least, not tracks from the first game. If they release some decent new content, I may briefly consider it.

On the other hand, Super Paper Mario is fantastic in every way. I figured it would mostly be a platformer, but it really is just a regular ol’ Paper Mario with some gimmickry and no separate battles. The whole 2D-to-3D business will really, really screw with your head. The first lesson you’ll learn when you start it up is that perception is not always truth. All you think you know about platformers, about Super Mario, even about video games in general, all that and more will be challenged. And if the gameplay alone wasn’t awesome enough, the game is probably funnier than the two previous Paper Mario games combined. Chapter 3-4 is hysterical, as it’s a huge jab at the internet and geek/otaku culture, best of all being that the first half of the Chapter 3 boss is a Japanese dating sim pardoy. It’s almost too much. I nearly hurt myself laughing as soon as I realized what was happening. Oh yes, and Luigi is a major-ish part of the plot, and a playable character! Super Paper Mario is without a doubt the best game currently on the Wii anything, and Nintendo has a long road ahead of them if they expect to top this. Ever. I AM ERROR!

Speaking of screwing with your head, if you plan on playing Super Paper Mario and feel like your brain needs a little warm-up for thinking outside the box, try out this little doozy. Basically what it is is a really impossible brain teaser. You’ve gotta put blocks in a grid to match shapes/patterns at different angles, but you’re only allowed to use so many. At first it seems like something that’s simple enough, but when you get down to it, it actually requires a lot of thinking. I spent like half an hour on the first puzzle and still couldn’t get it. I managed to figure out number 2, but that’s about it. Oh, I guess number 10 is really easy. I got it right away.

Lastly, I stumbled upon what might be the death fo my free time as I know it. Normally, I’m pretty addicted to Wikipedia. It’s like informational crack, and I’m known to spend entire nights just reading articles about characters, games, places, you name it. But now… I found this page. It combines my addiction to Wikipedia with my infatuation with cryptozoology to create some kind of horrible Ryan-destroying force of death and words and chupacabras. Also, after some light reading of a couple of the articles contained within the master list I linked, I’ve discovered that I need to head down to Churubusco, Indiana one of these Julys so that I can take in what must undoubtedly be the most wonderful festival ever: Turtle Days. From now on, that will be my life’s ambition.