Category: Holidays

Remembering the Cottage: Part 1

My fondest memories can more or less be summed up in three categories: “Shopping at Toys ‘R’ Us”, “Holidays/Trips”, and “The Cottage”. The first two categories can still potentially be added to, but sadly, the third is now sealed away as only memories.

I’ve mentioned many a time on this website (most often in the blog) my many visits to my grandparents’ house, which just happened to be a sweet cottage out on the Winnipeg River. The thing is, I never described many events in detail, or took any pictures while I was out there. to nearly everyone, this mysterious cottage could have just as well been a well-constructed myth. To me though, it was very real, and it was the essence of my summers. I spent at least two weeks out there during the summer months for as long as I can remember, and there were quite often other trips out there for such events as Spring Break, Christmas, Thanksgiving, family reunions, long weekends, and many more. It was a great place, and while I may not have appreciated it quite as much in my older years, it was still a place I loved being very much.

Imagine my heartbreak when I first heard that my grandparents were thinking about selling. As if enough bad mojo wasn’t surrounding me in the year 2007, but now my beloved cottage was going to be taken away? Yeah, it sucks balls. The place was actually sold right at the end of August, and on my last weekend out there, I decided I would take a few pictures so I could put them on a webpage laced with wonderful stories of the time I’d spent there. This is that page, and it’s definitely more for my own sake than for anyone else to read, but feel free to sift through it. There are a lot of memories and strong emotions here, so don’t expect even an attempt at humour.

The TV Room

Overview: Ah, the TV room. I probably spent more hours here than anywhere else, but there are a couple catches that help to make that seem less like I was glued to the TV for all the time I was at the cottage. The most obvious one would be that for a couple years I used one of the couches as my bed, so that racks up the hours pretty quickly. If I regret anything in my lifetime, it’s that I didn’t spend nearly enough time out on the balcony that extends from this room. Don’t know why, but it just never seemed like the place I should be hanging out.

Atari: I guess the earliest thing I can remember this room for is that it’s where we had out Atari. Long before I got hooked on video games, my dad left his Atari system out here, only to be dug up many years later so he could show me the kind of games that were around before the NES. I spent many many hours playing Kangaroo, Pitfall, and Pac-Man. Even back when I was only but a wee lad, I could recognize that ET was the worst game ever made. The biggest mystery about the whole thing though, was that we had a manual for Donkey Kong, but there was nary a cartridge to go with it. Oh, how I burned to play Donkey Kong.

Simpsons & Bonding time: My younger cousin would often come in to visit at the same time we did in the summers, and it worked out well because he’s very much like me, so myself and The Youngest One would often spend a lot of time hanging out in here with him and playing whatever handheld game was in at the time. Or just whatever the most recent Pokémon game was. Those two are even more into Pokémon than I am, and I would always get into it when we came out to the cottage, because the young ones just wouldn’t shut up about it, and that would drag me into it. The Tall One and I were also deeply entrenched in the MegaMan Battle Network series, and it was pretty much a summertime tradition to buy the games just before we went out the cottage and simply play the Hell out of them while we were there. Both series of games brought me not only the regular pleasure of playing video games, but also a lot of valuable bonding time with my brothers and cousin. Sure, I can still play with them at home, but it’s just not the same. Also, my grandparents got satellite TV a few years back, and it seemed like that on any given evening that we were there, the Simpsons would always be on at least one channel, so we generally always had that on in the background. Good times, they were. Good times.

Movie night: Back in the day, my grandpa would often borrow a bunch of movies from a neighbour so we had something to watch while we were out there (this was before the satellite, and we were restricted to like three fuzzy channels). This is notable because it’s the first place I ever saw Kindergarten Cop, which remains my favourite Schwarzenegger film, and is near the top of my overall favourites. Many other times, while my grandparents were staying in the city, my family would come out for the weekend and basically binge on junk food and watch movies. Most of them were stinkers like RV and Epic Movie (to name some of the most recent), but it was still cherished time spent with my family and many, many cookies.

Random thoughts: It was a great place to hang out, and of course we often brought more in the way of video games than handhelds, as Atari was fun, but never quite enough. We fought over which console we would bring each time almost as much as we fought over who got to sit in that big reclining chair you can see in the second picture. I played a lot of Donkey Kong 64 out here, and that particular week at the cottage remains one of the most memorable for many reasons. I’ll always carry in my heart the memories of the first time I caught all the legendary birds in Pokémon Blue, as they were all while I was out at the cottage. I spent many subsequent trips out there playing through the game again and again, always reliving my triumphs over Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres with a smile on my face, often in the middle of the night when I should have been long asleep.

Guest Bedrooms

Overview: Only one is pictures, but there were actually two bedrooms upstairs. While I suppose they weren’t technically guest bedrooms, nobody used them but guests, so there you have it. Until the shed outside was turned into a mini-cottage of sorts (more on that later), we would often sleep in these rooms. For a handful of years I slept in the TV Room, as I mentioned before, but these were where we stayed the majority of the time.

Bedtime: The room you see pictured is actually the final phase of that room’s series of redecorations. Initially it had two huge beds lined against the window wall and the wall opposite the shelving. And when I say huge, I mean huge enough to play underneath with plenty of room to spare. I guess they were more high up than anything else, but while they were in there, I was still small enough to think they were gigantic. Until The Youngest One was born, the older two and I would sleep in this room together, a crib or mattress was placed in the empty floor when needed, and I moved onto the second bedroom room when The Youngest One came along and three beds weren’t enough to satisfy the four of us. But until that time, we spent many nights staying up “late” (back when 10:30 was late) and telling stories and jokes in the dark. Being all boys, there was plenty of roughhousing after bedtime too, and I really miss those times.

Bedtime 2: Eventually, when I moved onto the second upstairs bedroom, I was on my own and free to do whatever I pleased instead of sleeping. Obviously, I used that time alone to play GameBoy, listen to music, and read (most memorably the Final Fantasy VIII strategy guide, because that was another completely kickass summer) all through the night. Once the boys started sleeping outside (in the aforementioned shed) I took over the original room for myself again, and at that point it had been rearranged into the room you see in the picture above.

Comics: You can see the shelving in the picture, but hidden behind the pile of assorted sheets and whatnot is a huge collection of comics. They consisted mostly of Archie, Alf, Heathcliff, and Richie Rich. While those aren’t exactly my first choices in comics nowadays, I was pleased as punch to spend countless afternoons leafing through them. And though it took me a couple years to get the job done, I did eventually read through them all. Taking note of my love of comics, my grandpa started saving me the Sunday comics from the Free Press every week, and every time I went out to the cottage he’d always have a stack of funnies for me to peruse. He still saves them for me to this day, and I haven’t put any time aside to read through them for a while now, so I’ve got a rather large pile in my closet just waiting to be read or thrown out.

Horsin’ Around: Back when we were young, and the huge beds were still in the room, my brothers and I spent a lot of time playing in there, often concluding in someone being injured, however slightly. The number one game would be “Lava Monster”, which I know is not exclusive to us, because I’ve seen characters on TV playing it. But in case you have no idea, basically one person would be the Lava Monster and have to stay on the floor, and anyone else would be trying to stay on the beds while the Lava Monster tried to pull them down “into the lava”. The limited playfield may seem like an issue when I describe it, but it was more than enough when we were just lil’ guys. Plus, we’d always get any other visiting children to join in too, so sometimes the Lava Monsters would amount to more than one, depending on rules (either “Tag” or “Last Man Standing”).

Random Thoughts: Now that I think about it, I guess probably the thing I miss most about the cottage (and childhood in general) was playing with the older two of my brothers. While we still hang out and play video games together now and then, we don’t spend nearly as much time together as we did when we went to the cottage. Back when we were kids, we fought a lot (like, seriously, a lot) at home, but as soon as we got to the cottage, we were like best friends. It’s weird to say because I still see them every day, but I kinda miss my brothers. The Youngest One, I still find plenty of time to hang out with though, so at least I’ve got that. For now.

The Kitchen / Dining Room

Overview: Honestly, the living room, dining room, and kitchen are pretty much all the same room. But that’s hardly the point here. Being the glutton that I am, this area of the house holds just as many lovely memories for me as any other room. My grandma is a wonderful cook, and even the simplest dishes meant a lot, just because. I’ll certainly miss the couple weeks each year where I was guaranteed to have three square meals a day.

Breakfast time: Where to start? I suppose breakfast would be the obvious one. I’m not a big breakfast eater. I adore the meal, but very rarely to I have enough motivation or time to partake. The nice thing about the cottage is that breakfast was always a sure thing (with the exception of the later years where I would stay up too late and sleep right through breakfast time). Most of the time it would be a simple cereal/toast/fruit affair, but that was okay. My grandpa would always have the paper completely read by the time I got up, so when I was eating breakfast, he’d have the comics and puzzles pulled out and ready for me. Eating cereal is twice as awesome when you’ve got a crossword laid out for you and someone to chat with. On the best mornings, my grandma would make pancakes. Oh, those were mornings to really treasure. Until later on when grandma didn’t feel like making tons of them, my brothers and I would always compete to see who could scarf down the most. Good times were had by everyone, but our bellies were probably the happiest of all. Lazy mornings are probably my absolute most favourite thing in the world, and at the cottage, they were all that much better.

Lunch: I never looked quite as forward to lunch as much as I did breakfast, but I still like to revel in the nostalgia of noon-related meals. Most of all, would be when I was between eight and twelve or so, and we would often get the boat out and go fishing with my grandpa in the mornings. We’d always get bored pretty quickly and just resort to fooling around on the boat, but going home was a payoff in more than just getting back on dry land. My grandma would generally have lunch ready by that time, and it was awesome. Coming home to a big plate of sandwiches, veggies, cheese, cookies, and all sorts of etc was just superb after a long morning of fishing. Of course, lunch was great on other days, but those are the ones I remember the most. Looking back on this, I guess maybe it all sounds a bit mundane, but you really had to be there. Being pre-adolescent would help too.

Dinner: This is where grandma’s cooking really comes into play. You’re not going to do anything too fancy for lunch, but dinner is a different story. Grandpa often joked that he ate like a king whenever we were over, and I suppose maybe it’s not too far from the truth. I’m a notoriously picky eater, so I would often pick at some things, but most of the time I ate really well. Hams were especially common, and my family seems to be imbued with the power of making wicked awesome mashed potatoes. Going to the cottage on special occasions was great too, because that meant my grandma would make an extra huge and extra delicious dinner, which was always something to look forward to, even for one with as particular eating habits as me. In fact, I actually wrote about one particularly wonderful Easter dinner on the blog. Turns out it would be the last Easter diner we ever ate there….

Elsewhere…

Overview: While it’s true that being at the cottage was in itself the high point of going to the cottage, there were plenty of other cool places nearby to spend time. Most were great for adventuring while we were little, and some offered more than a simple thrill of an excursion into the unknown. All of them though, played a vital role in making trips to the cottage as memorable as the were.

Town: The cottage was about a five minute drive from the nearest town, Lac du Bonnet. I never cared too much for it while younger, but as I grew, I started to realize that it was more than just a grocery store and a beach. Annual Canada Day parades, while officially boring as Hell, would become an important family tradition, and the fireworks afterward only seem to get better each year. It was also home to the only dollar store where I’d ever seen the infamous Nintendo Surprise. It has since closed down and moved to a much larger building, and the goods within have become only slightly less magical. When Subway moved in, it was all we talked about for ages. The only chain restaurant that had been in the town until then was Chicken Chef, and that’s not the kind of place you just go on a whim. Nope, after Subway moved in, I don’t think there was one trip to the cottage where we didn’t partake.

Town 2: Pinawa is a little farther away, and we visited less often, but always for good reason. Firstly, I would like to mention that if it weren’t for my need to shop compulsively for various electronic media, this is exactly the kind of place I would like to live in. It’s small, but not tiny, and most if not all of the houses are quite nice. I’ve always entertained the thought of living in a small town, and Pinawa has always romanticized that idea. Anyhow, the main attraction here is The Burger Boat & Ice Cream Barge. It’s not the best ice cream place I’ve ever gone, but there’s something special about getting your ice cream from a boat. Always a special occasion, going to The Burger Boat was something to really get excited about. Seriously! On a boat! Turns out they even have their own web page. Neat!

The Boat Launch: A short hike away from the cottage, there’s a boat launch that I’ve never seen anyone use for boats. We’d go swimming or fishing off it, but never any boats. Probably because nearly everyone with a boat in the area has their own boat launch, but that’s besides the point. In any case, over the years, it became more of a point just for me to travel out to just to get some alone/thinking time. There were better spots for such things, but they were all farther away, and I’m lazy. The hike there was worth mentioning too, as there was always a bunch of stuff on the way. Mostly bodies of water to skip rocks in and bales of hay to climb on, but they meant a lot back in the day.

The Rocks: Along Tower Road was, that’s right, a tower. To this day I’m not sure exactly what kind of tower it was. Maybe a broadcasting tower of some sort? No idea, but that’s not what we ventured over there for. All around the mysterious tower were what seemed like endless miles of rocks perfectly fit for climbing. Heading out there at least once per summer, we’d make entire days of climbing around, searching for something, but not quite knowing what that something was. Maybe we were looking for anything at all? To me, it always seemed like the formations had changed, but I guess that’s dumb to say. I know they couldn’t have, but I guess my mental mapping skills weren’t entirely developed by then. We did, on occasion, find a small pile of rocks that signified that someone else had been wandering around there too, and we’d often set up our own little rock piles, with the intent of showing both other people and ourselves that we’d been there already. I haven’t been out there since I was about fifteen, and many times I’ve considered just making a trip out there to visit both Lac du Bonnet and Pinawa, and to spend the rest of the day climbing around on the rocks I so loved as a young’un. Maybe I’ll get around to it one of these summers.

More!: Yeah. There’s still more here. Hell, I could go on nearly forever with stories of my youth in any of these categories. It just so happens that the ones that take place outside sound infinitely less boring to everyone else. There were a lot of other places we’d head out to see what we could see, often against our wills. The Pinawa Dam was close enough that we didn’t mind going, but there still wasn’t much of interest. Point Du Bois was much farther away, and while it held a bunch of great memories for my grandparents and dad, there’s like nothing there that’s even remotely interesting to anyone who never lived/spent summers there. There were all sorts of other landmarks that my grandparents liked to take us to, like a big ol’ suspension bridge, and yet another dam. All were pretty boring and mosquito-filled, but in the end, I appreciate them taking us, because as lackluster as they are, they still count as good memories.

Woof. Considering that I haven’t tapped even half the pictures I took, this article could very well go on forever. We certainly don’t want that, now do we? No. So, keeping everyone’s best interest in mind, I’ll stop here for the moment and call it Part One. How many more will there be? Who knows! It’ll likely only be a two-parter, but if I’m as verbose with ther rest of the pictures as I’ve been with the ones I’ve posted so far, we’ll likely be seeing a Part Three as well. But that’ll be the absolute limit. Even if I tried, there’s no way I could justify doing this in a four-part series. I guess you can’t really put a limit on your memories, but the honest truth is that most of the events that I found significant and still dream happily about would be viewed as horribly mundane by pretty much anyone else. So keep an eye out for number two. Given how long it took me to finish this one, we should be seeing it by the second half of 2011.

The dawning of a new age

It’s hard to believe that sometime during this month, I will have been maintining this website for five years. That’s legendary for blogs that nobody reads. But maybe things will change this year. I’ve forgotten the site’s birthday/anniversary for like three years in a row, so I guess it’s time I make up for that. To celebrate, here’s a fresh coat of paint! Also, a lolcake.

I’ve still got a long way to go to get things all up to speed (never finished the last redecoration, and there’s still stuff to move over from the old Angelfire site), but we’re off to a good start. Everything looks crisp and extra-virginal in the new white theme. I’ll admit that it does seem a bit sterile, whereas the old black site had more personality, but the white look seems to be going out of style, and everyone knows it’s hip to be behind the trends. Or, I think that’s how it works anyway.

The first thing I would like to draw your attention to is the new NAVI Bar. It’s a pretty basic sidebar, but nicer-looking and with Engrish flair! You’ll notice that the rollover does more than just change the link color too. The spacing trick is a small touch, but still nice to look at, and if you hold your mouse over any link, a short description will pop up!

Eventually I hope to streamline most of the site to match this page, much like I had intended to do with the old layout. News archive pages will be stripped down to the base blog so that I don’t have to worry about maintaining any time-sensitive things like links. I have no idea what I’m going to do with the articles page, but something will happen. And if you hadn’t noticed, I’m still working in HTML with some help from CSS stylesheets. This could all flow so much easier if I were to take the time to learn PHP, but frankly, I know I’ll lose interest before I can make any good use of it. If anyone were willing to volunteer some time to make at least the main blog and articles page stream together nicely, that would kick ass… but I’m not asking or anything. It would totally have to be a “from the goodness of your heart” thing.

So yeah. All the articles will be stuck into this stuffy layout too, somehow, so if you don’t like it… Well, that’s a problem. You have to admit that it’ll look nicer than the randomly cobbled together pages I’ve got going now. Oh, and you’ll get a cookie if you can tell me which site this layout is inspired from. The last one was ripped almost directly from an old GorillaMask layout, but this one is a ripoff in spirit alone. I reworked the code for it all by myself.

Speaking of code, that’s the last change, as invisible as it may be. It’s not quite up to standards yet, but I weeded out a huge amount of useless tags from the index code, and cleaned up what was left a little. You’ll still get a headache trying to figure out what’s going on in there, but it’s better.

So that’s it for now. I’m not sure what the next few years will have in store, but hopefuly they’re more productive than the last year has been. Jeez, I must have published like, two articles this year? Oh well. At least the place looks prettier now.

Todaybor Day is Labour Day

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

In through the out hole

You know what? I was going to discuss the annual Lac du Bonnet Canada Day parade, but to be frank, it wasn’t really overly noteworthy. I guess you really can’t expect too much from a small town parade though. Also, the window of me caring has long since past. To tell the truth, the whole weekend lacked anything worth mentioning. I think that the most important things that I accomplished last weekend were hitting the 400 mark in Pokémon and catching up on a couple episodes of Retronauts. Yeah. My life may not sound exciting (and it’s not), but that’s the way I likes it.

I don’t really have anywhere to go with this then… Just thought I’d make my intentions (or lack thereof) clear. Also, the episode of Futurama where Planet Express Ship falls in love with Bender is on, and my attention can only be devoted to one thing at a time. Needless to say, Futurama wins over blogging.

Monkey magic

Was out at the cottage for Canadia Day celebratations. Happy belated, by the way. I’ll run up some general impressions/stories/whatever it is where you tell about a generally uneventful trip probably tomorrow or maybe even Wednesday. Now, more Ouendan chatter.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time away from Resident Evil 4 playing Ouendan 2, and while I’ve already mumbled a few uncoordinated sentences about it, I think it’s probably worth a revisit to pick out the more outstanding nucances of the series, and what makes it so much more enjoyable than the basic rhythm game.

I said last time I talked about Ouendan 2 that I had been apprehensive about the soundtrack, and why wouldn’t I be? My experience with Japanese music is shockingly limited, given my burning desire to seek out new music. And given that a lot of popular music in the North America region does in no way suit my tastes, I guess I was kind of expecting popular Japanese stuff to be equally off-putting to me. But quite to the contrary!

Not only do I find almost the entire soundtrack enjoyable, but a lot of the songs are really fantastic. The main factor here would be that even on the most basic level, Japanese music is so obviously different than North American – and even European – music, that it kind of falls into it’s own category. Our Black Eyed Peas are one of the few bands that feature constant simlutaneous male and female vocals, and they have a weird sort of sound that merges rap and pop. Mihimaru GT, on the other hand, has the same man/lady vocal schtick, and they also do the rap/pop blend thing. But depite the simlilar nature of the two bands, I cannot stand the former, and cannot help but be entranced by the latter. Plus, if we’re comparing Fergie to Hiroko, Japan wins hands-down. Ewwww Fergie.

And let’s not just skip past the really high points for the sake of making a semi-intelligent sounding post. Have you heard “Bambina” yet? If not, get that embedded video above loading on the double! Hotei Tomoyasu is nothing short of a musical genius, and I don’t doubt that everything he touches turns to gold (metaphorically, of course). That isn’t to say the rest of the soundtrack isn’t splendid as well; “Samurai Blue”, recorded by ZZ – apparently Japan’s answer to Fall Out Boy – given all the oh-oh-ohing – is fantasically catchy, and Mika Nakashima’s “Glamorous Sky”, when kept in the context of the Ouendan scenario, tugs at the heart like a box of abandoned puppies.

But the music in not the only thing that has really drawn me into the game. I discovered with Elite Beat Agents (Ouendan’s North American counterpart) that iNiS’ simple approach to rhythm-based gameplay was was fantastically addictive. Rather than confounding yourself with making sure you’re hitting the right button/fret/whatever it’s called on the dance pads, the Ouendan formula makes life easier by just having you tap beats in the right order at the right time. Of course, while the concept is simple, mastery of it takes time, practice, and most of all, good rhythm. That is to say, Jews are pretty much screwed. (jk jk jk I’m not anti-semitic!) When you start out, the beats will appear long before they need to be hit, but once you get up to the higher difficulty levels, they show up almost right when they need to be poked. And the fact that once songs get beat-heavy, the chains will start intertwining, and you’ll not only have to make sure your timing is right, but you also have to be careful that you’re following the numbers properly. Needless to say, it can get pretty hectic.

Of course, this is all before you factor in the ever-present “rhythm game life bar”. You may know it better as a “Dance Gauge” or “Rock Meter”, but it’s all the same thing; basically a bar present of the screen that causes you to lose if it’s emptied. The various gauges and meters in other rhythm games are pretty damn leniet, decreasing with a missed mark, and increasing with a hit mark. Ouendan’s is a little more evil. Rather than being static between beats, the life bar in Ouendan is constantly depleting, and at higher rates in higher difficulty levels. Missing a beat altogether will cost you a serious chunk of the bar, and on expert mode (“Magnificanet cheering”), hitting anything less than perfect beats will only serve to slow the trickle. One song in particular, “Believe”, is so slow that while playing on expert, I could hit every note (albeit not a perfect hit each time), and still fail the song halfway through because the bar was emptying faster than I could fill it. It took a long time, but eventually, I pulled of a long enough streak of perfect hits to make it to the end with but a sliver of life remaining. To put it simply, the game gets difficult. And it’s not like you’ve got a Star Power gauge to carry you through the rough spots either. No, if you want to play Ouendan to its full potential, it’s really a go-big-or-go-home kind of game. Like Bonk’s Revenge or Bram Stoker’s Dracula, where you can only play through the whole game if you’re playing on the hardest difficulty setting.

So yes. I think that’s about everything I needed to say. Also, if you haven’t played them yet, or can’t see them for some reason, I’ve embedded music videos for two of my favourite songs from Ouendan 2 in between the preceeding paragraphs. Hotei Tomoyasu’s “Bambina” was an obvious choice, because it’s not only like the best song ever recorded, but the video is wicked trippy too. The second, featuring Sambomaster’s “Sekai Wa Sore Wo Ai To Yobundaze” is a great song too, and I really like the concept of the video. In conclusion, if you have a DS (or even if you don’t), import it now. Buy Elite Beat Agents too while you’re at it, because despite the somewhat sketchy track list, it’s still incredibly fun. And more sales mean more sequels, so hop to it!

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.

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.

The 2007 Christmas Gift Roundup

You might not have ever noticed, but back in January of last year, I never actually posted a big ol’ rundown of all the assorted junk I got for Christmas. I guess the main reason is that I felt a little bad about the sheer volume of stuff I receive for the holiday, despite the fact that I’m getting into my adult years. A 20-year old probably shouldn’t get quite as much as I did that year, and it seemed wrong for me to go and show off everything.

This year I had originally planned to keep the once-yearly feature buried, but then I saw Matt’s gift roundup on the X-Entertainment blog, and the fact that he got way more stuff than I did made me think that oh, maybe I’m not quite as spoiled as I thought. Given, I don’t have like a hundred siblings, but the point stands. My parents also had a little extra scratch this year, and besides renovating half the house, they also used it to shower us and themseves in Christmas gifts. And that’s basically why I’m running this feature right now, as late as it my be.

Now that the whole semi-related intro groundwork business is laid out I suppose it’s time we get to the down and dirty of this article here: the goodies. Though I’d like to remind you that while I use the term “good”, I can predict that some will groan at at least a few entries on the list. Oh, also like the X-E rundown, this will be somewhat more abbreviated than lists of years past. These kinds of things don’t really deserve two pages.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker : One of my fondest memories of classic Game Boy games is the original Dragon Quest Monsters. I spent weeks worth of time playing that games, and still didn’t even come close to finishing it. It was a hard freakin’ game, what can I say? I skipped the second (and third, apparently) installment of the series, but I figured that when they announced a DS sequel that I’d give it a spin, and it’s nearly exactly how I remember it. The idea of the game is obviously a mix between Pokémon and Dragon Quest, and I really can’t decide what franchise I prefer. Pokémon is 90% strategy-based, while DQM is pretty much an “accept button” masher, but offers a far more obsessive-compulsive breeding system. Though with the default battle option being autobattle, it’s nice to sit back and watch your team just massacre everyone. In any case, while it’s very DQ in the way that it demands a lot of level-grinding, I still love it.

Silent Hill Origins : Quite possibly my most longed-for PSP game ever, Silent Hill Origins is a bit of a mixed bag. I haven’t played too far into it as of yet (I’m saving it for when I finish with DQM), but I really like what I’ve played through. On the positive side, the atmosphere is perfect, being completely creepy and one of the the few horror-based franchises that actually frightens me. The less positive being that every weapon you pick up is breakable. And they break fast. It’s not a huge issue, because punching enemies to death works just fine (it just takes a little longer), and if you’re up against more than one enemy at a time, it doesn’t matter what kind of weapon you’re carrying: you will be murdered. Also, Harry would breathe heavily after running for a while in the original Silent Hill, which was a neat touch, but protagonist-man-whose-name-I’ve- currently-forgotten can actually only run for a while before he needs to breathe out or down an energy drink. I hate realism in games because it’s almost always inconvenient. All in all though, it delivers more than enough to be worth it, and I think I’ll really enjoy it once I sit down and give it more than an hour.

Futurama: Bender’s Big Score : Time has done well to Futurama. It may not be exactly what I was hoping for in a fifth season, but the first of however many of these “movies” they’re making sets a pretty good standard. I’ve watched it twice now, which is a lot, considering that I’ve almost never seen a movie twice in such a short span of time. The plot deals with a lot of time travel, which can cause some pretty perplexing plot holes, but as far as I care, the writing staff did a great job avoiding that kind of stuff and workied it out pretty well. One thing I noticed about Futurama over the course of it’s life is that it went from being just about funny to being funny and really fleshing out the characters and their relationships with each other. Bender’s Big Score continues down that road, albeit maybe not as much as the fourth season did, but there’s a good amount of sincerity along with the humour. The only thing I didn’t like is that they referenced like 95% of the old episodes, which is maybe a little too much. Self-referential humour is good and all, but freshness is good too.

Superbad : I saw a brief bit of this movie shortly after it came to DVD (“Do you know how many foods are shaped like dicks? All the good ones!”), and I knew that I had to own it. I do not regret this decision, but I also disagree with all the hype surrounding it. Maybe I just missed something, but I don’t think it’s quite as holy as the general consensus would like you to think. It’s a great movie, yes. It’s hilarious, no doubt. I just don’t really think it’s going to redefine any genres. Then again, I have yet to break into the second disc, which contains extras that might shine some light on exactly why I should think it’s pure genius. So we’ll leave the final word open for now, but it is totally worth buying.

Killswitch Engage – The End of Heartache : I was introduced to Killswitch Engage back in… 04 maybe? Anyway, they had a song on the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack, and it was one of the standout tracks on the disc (though most of them are pretty good). I downloaded like two more songs to see more of what they were like, and I was kinda apathetic about it all. Their latest single, “My Curse”, in in Guitar Hero 3, and that’s when I decided to give them another shot. I got The End of Heartache for Christmas, and I’m thinking maybe I should go and pick up their two other CDs. I’m not much of a metal connoisseur, so I can’t really say much about them, but I like Killswitch Engage.

HIM – Venus Doom : Yeah, I’m still listening to HIM. A lot of bands I’ll listen to obsessively for a while and then kind of forget about, but HIM is one of the groups with staying power. Their latest offering is quite good. I’ve only had it on in the background while I play video games, so I haven’t really sat down just to listen to it and absorb it, but I do realy like it. Maybe even a bit more than Dark Light, which I was ever so slightly disappointed with. I guess the reason is that I was drawn into the Dark Light hype, so maybe I was expeting too much, I don’t know. In contrast, I didn’t even know about Venus Doom until like a week before Christmas, so I was just excited that there was a new HIM CD.

Dethklok – The Dethalbum : Honestly, what haven’t I said about The Dethalbum already? I downloaded it the day before it was released, and I’ve listened to it probably about 50 times. Now, I own it. The Tall One had to venture to a mall on the other end of the city to find the stupid thing, but it was a trek well worth it. We’re both huge Metalocalypse fans, so either of us probably would have gone even farther to procure it. I’m just slightly disappointed that there weren’t any copies of the special edition available. The bonus disc is short, but the songs on it are totally worth however much extra money they charge for it. Conclusion: wicked CD.

Beetlejuice : I’ve seen this movie on TV so goddamned many times that I really don’t need to own it, but it’s a great addition to my collection anyway. Why wouldn’t you want to watch Beetlejuice? I wouldn’t buy the cartoon series though. It’s one of the few shows I loved in my childhood that I just can’t really get into anymore. Ah well. At least the toys were cool.

Trailer Park Boys Christmas Special : When this first came out maybe two years ago, I skipped it because I figured it would be included on one of the season DVD sets. I was dead wrong. Now I don’t have a Conky finger puppet because I waited, but I guess I’ll find a way to manage without.

Wii Points : Wii Points are a precious resource to me. I can never have enough, and I’m ever so slightly iffed that I only got one card for Christmas. Oh well. The Youngest One decided he would gift me a Virtual Console game as his present, but there was nothing I didn’t already own that I wanted on the service, so he gave me a raincheck. It’s been three weeks since Christmas and I still have that raincheck. Where are all the good VC games?

Nunchuck attachment : “But Ryan,” you say “when did you get a second Wii Remote?” the fact of the matter is that I did not. I just wanted a second nunchuck so that I could have one just to leave in the Zapper. Honestly, I back-and-forth with the thing a lot, and locking in and winding up the nunchuck, then undoing it all when I’m done is a pain in the ass. The annoyance of the process has on more than one occasion stopped me from playing anything at all, so you can see how Goddamned lazy I really am. Actually, I probably should pick up a second Wiimote just to leave in the Les Paul…

Lost season 3 : The thing between me and TV is that I don’t watch things on purpose. I can never remember when shit is on, or what channel it’s on, so when I find a show I like, I generally just go out and buy the DVDs to save myself the trouble. I don’t usually blaze through DVD sets so quickly, but I’ve already watched every episode from this particular season, and have started hacking away at the bonus features disc. I guess I wouldn’t really call myself a Lost junkie, because I’m not completely fanatical about it, but it is without a doubt my favourite show on TV right now. Season 4 is supposed to the be the end, and it makes me sad, but given the way 3 ended, I guess dragging it on any longer would seem forced. So yeah. I thoroughly enjoy Lost.

The Godzilla Collection : I’ll be honest here, I haven’t seen any classic Godzilla movies in their entirety. I’ve tried to watch a couple over the years, but since they were always on TV quite late, and I was much younger then, I always ended up falling asleep. It’s a lore I’ve always been very interested in though. I’ve played a lot of the Godzilla-based video games, and read up plenty on the subject on the ol’ Wikipedia. When I saw this box, my eyes bugged out and I knew that it had to be mine. And now it is. I still haven’t set aside time to crack it open yet, because I want to marathon it, but I fully intend to sometime within the next week or two. It contains seven movies: the original, and the six Showa series films. I know somewhere out there there’s a box of the Heisei series films, but I just haven’t found it yet. When I do though…

The Doors : This was kind of an odd one. My mom was looking for things for The Tall One, and she pointed this out. I surmised that he probably didn’t listen to the Doors, but that I did, though not really showing much interest. Christmas morning: BAM! You know what? Maybe it’s not something I would pursue under my own power, but it sounds like an interesting movie. I’m pretty sure it’ll be awesome. Because I think the Doors are pretty awesome. Now all I have to do is put aside some spare time in which to watch it. Maybe I’ll do that once I’m done with this stupid article.

Jerry Seinfeld Live on Broadway : It’s Seinfeld. It was a stocking stuffer. Again, not something I would really even give a second look, but ends up being right up my alley. Again, haven’t watched it yet, but fully intend to. If the standup bits on the show were representative of what his real acts are like, then I’m assuming that this will have me busting a gut, so to speak.

Trauma Center: New Blood : You know what’s pretty cool? The Wii Zapper works quite nicely with the Trauma Center games. Never would have thought so, would you? Okay, it hasn’t made a huge difference, but the little bit of extra steadiness helps. In any case, I only started this one up last night. I’m not quite sure if I ever finished the first one, but that’s besides the point. So far, the game is… well, exactly the same. The production values have gone up considerably, though I think the new TV does have a small role to play there. The fact that the entire game is voice-acted is great, because the VAs do a terrific job for the most part. It may not be anything particularly fresh, but hey, Trauma Center is wicked fun.

Whiskey : In the toe of my stocking, rather than finding the traditional orange (which, coincidentally, I’ve never gotten in my stocking), there was a small bottle of Crown Royal. Also, a shot glass with a Santa face on it. Huzzah. Both remain unopened because, quite frankly, I very rarely find myself in a situation where I require alcohol. Mostly because I spend my Friday/Saturday nights alone in my room. I’m not complaining, I’m just sayin’.

Sudoku TV : I’ll admit it, I’m hooked on Sudoku. I blame Brain Age entirely for this. So anyhow, I saw this gizmo at Wal-Mart one night while Christmas shopping with the “fam”, and decided to pick it up because I thought it would be good for a review at the very least. My mom said she’d buy it and told me to act surprised. So on Christmas morning I was treated to a huge box full of plug-n-play Sudoku. And you know what? It’s crap. I mean, it didn’t promise anything that it doens’t deliver, but the buttons are crappy and insensitive, the controls for playing Sudoku on the TV is completely asinine, and the little LCD screen just doesn’t suit the game very well. And I’m not even going to get into the other games that are packed into it. Ugh. It’s usable, but just barely. I will have to go in-depth with it though. It’s just that hilariously bad.

Gift Card Mania!!! : Every year I see more of these little things and it’s like: why don’t you just give me money? They’re not even all in the picture. I mean, I guess the only one I’d be unlikely to use is the one for Blockbuster, because I almost never rent anything, but still. And what’s with the two movie passes? Are you trying to say something? Are you that unsatisfied with me being single? I won five bucks on the Set For Life ticket though. Which is good becaue now I can go get another one, but bad because I know how addicting lottery tickets can be. I already spend way too much money, I don’t need those dumb things nickel-and-diming my bank account down even more.

And that about wraps that up. There are some other assorted thingers that I neglected to mention, mostly clothes and stocking stuffers, but those aren’t interesting in the least. That’s not to say that anything pictured is, but I’m not too concerned about showing the world a new pair of jeans or a pack of gum, you know? Yeah, so that’s the end then. I’m not sure exatly how to cut this off properly. I guess a clean break after the gift card paragraph would have been the best way to do it, but I’ve committed myself to this paragraph and I’m damn well going to see it through. To the end. Which is now.

If only I had known

So Christmas was pretty good to me. Hasn’t really failed yet. However, the Christmas Haul article as you know it is dead. I don’t know if I’m going to do it differently this year, or just do it on the blog, or just skip it altogether. I haven’t decided yet. Just don’t expect the same article you’ve read the last three Christmaseses. I doubt this development (or lack thereof?) has ruined anyone’s day.

I do want to hock a site today. I recently bought the super-sweet Drist CD Orchids and Ammunition from CD Baby. Complimenting the awesomeness of the CD was the service provided to me by CD Baby. Their site is home to many many small-/no-name bands that would be impossible to find otherwise, and this alone scores a good amount of points. Then there’s the facts that it’s really easy to make a purchase from them, they sell for decent prices, and the site is very personally constructed. And by that I mean they built the site thinking of the consumers, so it feels like they’re catering specifically to yourself. To top all this off, the e-mail they sent to confirm that my purchase was on the way was hilarious and made me very happy. The whole process was really commendable. I’m most definitely looking forward to doing business with CD Baby again, and I heartily suggest that you give them your business too if you’re ever looking to the internet to make your music purchases.