Static Shock

One thing I've noticed about myself recently is that when I'm looking forward to something, I wake up earlier in the mornings and go to sleep earlier in the evenings. 

An observation the attentive reader might make about this particular entry is that it was written at something like three and change in the morning, which, to those of you capable of basic reading comprehension and following patterns might indicate that I'm not looking forward to anything, which isn't entirely true, Christmas is coming up, after all.   

That said, over the course of the last two or so months, I'd been having a lot of fun being around someone whose company I very much enjoyed, and as a result of that I was waking up excruciatingly early (seriously, like 8:30 holy shit) and as a result of that I was going to bed earlier and earlier, and thus the cycle would perpetuate itself and so on. It makes sense, really. On the days I didn't get to see her, I wanted time to speed up so I could. Basically: The sooner I sleep, the sooner the next day is here, and my excitement for that next day would have me waking up before my alarm clock even went off for me to attend my classes. 

 I'm probably not going to be seeing much of her anymore, and I'm fine with that for the most part, some things don't work out. It's a bummer, but it's part of being a person. This entry isn't so much complaining about the loss of a relationship as it is commenting about how quickly things can return to normal after one ends. It's bizarre the way you return to the things you were doing before the person ever entered your life. In a way, it's kind of like you dreamed the whole thing. 

There was one instance I remember from maybe a year or two ago; At the time I was working my way through an emulated copy of Donkey Kong Country 3 when a girl unexpectedly took interest in me. I remember I was stuck on one of those shitty stages where you're inside those stupid pink trees. The one with the yellow bugs that are carrying rocks on their backs, and you step on the rocks, and when you do they jump into the air and lift you up higher. 

Anyway, as we started talking more and more, I began neglecting my attempted play-through of DKC3 in favor of talking to her on the phone all night. We hung out for a couple months; it all fell apart, but more than the time I spent with her, I remember sitting down in my computer chair one night after it was finally, definitively over and booting up the DKC3 emulator I had been working on. I remember sighing as I returned to the pink trees and the yellow bugs and wondering to myself whether or not anything had ever really changed.  

-The Management

Sonic Boom

It's always surprising to me when a new entry in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is released, because, invariably, I end up playing it. I've always attempted to dissuade others (and indeed, myself) from the notion that I am a legitimate fan of the franchise because of:

A) The series' childish exterior, which isn't typically an issue for me, but

B) The series' decline in quality in recent years happens to be.

Enough articles have been written about both the quality of some of the recent games and the quality of some of the die-hard fans that I don't really need to touch upon why both enjoying the games and being a fan of them have become increasingly negative things. One only needs to visit deviant art to see the sort of people I would be associating myself with were I to admit to being a fan of the series.

Search your fist name plus "The Hedgehog" on DA to see my point.

That said, I picked up a copy of Sonic Generations last week and beat it in a couple of hours, which was pretty disappointing, but one of the things that really stuck out to me in playing it was that I had actually played through every level before in their respective original levels.

Now, for those of you that don't know, Sonic Generations is sort of a greatest hits for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. What I mean by that is, every stage in the game (there are only NINE) is a reconstructed stage from somewhere in the series history. Every main-series Sonic game is represented here, which was made it so shocking when I realized that, shit, I recognized every single one of them

I've literally played every main series Sonic game. Every one. I've suffered through Werehogs, Sonic '06, and every other stupid gimmick imaginable.

Including a few gimmicks that weren't main-series

So, yeah, for better or worse, I guess I'm a Sonic fan, which is why it's cool that SEGA has finally given me something I can actually enjoy.

-The Management

I'm Sick

I've come down with a cold, which is stupid because it's July. It's sort of like dying of dehydration in the ocean: It sounds impossible, but it's actually not as stupid as it sounds. You moron.

You see, in much the same way that the ocean contains undrinkable salt-water and thus makes it very difficult to remain hydrated if you don't have that piss-purifying contraption that Kevin Costner had in water world, the Common Cold isn't actually caused by cold at all, but a bunch of viruses that infect your upper respitory system and make you cough and wheeze and all of those other horrible things. Come to think if it, those things aren't actually "much the same" in any real way. I'm talking out of my ass.

My sick, sick ass.

My ass is sick, yo.

-The Management

Games I'm Excited to Play: A List Designed to Help Maintain Enthusiasm

E3 was a bit of a bust this year, and it's pretty easy to say "videogames are over" and all that sort of stuff when you see Nintendo announcing yet another gimmick, Microsoft pushing Kinect so hard or the influx of "brown and bloom" shooters that never seem to do anything new or interesting with the medium.

To remind me that videogames are not in fact over, this is a list of games I want to play.

-Sonic Generations

-Batman: Arkham City

-Megaman Legends 3

-BioShock Infinite

-Paper Mario 3D

-Super Mario 3D

-Mario Kart 3d

-Ray Man Origins

-Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

-Animal Crossing 3D

Hilariously, every one of these is a sequel.

-The Management

Peanut Panic

This is part of an article I pitched to Cracked (which they rejected) about board games. I might put more of it up here eventually.

Peanut Panic is a game about peanuts and the horrific trials they endure on a daily basis. The plight of the peanut is oft ignored, and only in the 1990’s did we finally attain the courage to stand up and say that something should—Nay, must be done.

In the form of a bright, primarily colored board game.

The thrilling narrative involves a group of peanuts attempting to escape from a peanut butter factory and being stopped at nearly every turn by the Big Brother like surveillance of the… Ugh… Nut Patrol.

The Peanuts are separated into teams of two based on the color of their shell. The racial commentary is obvious here, so I won’t waste time expanding upon it. The movement of your peanuts through the factory is dictated by a spinner in the center of the board. You move your peanuts (always moving the one furthest from the goal) to the closest space with of the color you landed on.

But woe be to the peanut whose spinner lands on the “push down” symbol. If this happens, the Nut Patrol car is brought to stuttering, horrific, mechanical life. It putters its way around the track lifting with its two scoops of terror any peanut hapless enough to have landed on an unsafe space. Once its dark ritual is complete, the Nut Patrol car returns to the start of the board, emptying the contents of its dump truck into the start where the peanuts, now devoid of hope begin their doomed journey anew.

Peanut Panic also serves (much like William Golding’s Lord of the Flies) as a handy reminder of the inherently sadistic nature of the human race. Every once in awhile the Nut Patrol care will fall off the tracks, but we, being the disgusting violence craving beings we are will right it every time, returning the stalwart nuts to their perpetual hell.

“I have seen the two-fisted scooper of death”

Being there are very few spaces on the board and being that there are even fewer safe spaces, a game of Peanut Panic can either be very short if the spins are lucky, or alternatively last as long as a typical game of Monopoly if they are not, which, at rough estimation, is eternity.

An Affront to God

Grape Flavored apples.

Science has finally gone too far.

-The Management