Sunday, June 26, 2005

Mighty Max Was The Greatest

It may have been a juvenile cartoon, but it was a mature juvenile cartoon. It has such amazing voice stars as Robert Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, Richard Moll (Bull from Night Court), Tim Curry, and excellent writing for all of them. To sum up: a kid discovers that his baseball cap lets him travel through time and space in order to fight evil, in accordance with ancient prophecy. To aid our 13 year old star, he has Virgil, a super-intelligent chicken, and Normal, a seven foot tall Norse killing machine. Strangely, these two aren't a WHOLE lot of help. See below for amusing quotes:

Villain: [while being dangled over a cliff by Norman] You can't kill me! If you do, you'll be no better than me!
Norman: [drops him] I can live with that.

Max: Hey Virgil, how come you can't fly?
Virgil: I learned to read instead.


Max: Watch out, Bea! There are...
Bea: Three eerie looking things in black robes behind me?
Max: Yeah. How'd you know?
Bea: Lucky guess.

Max: What are we facing this time? A beast? A monster? A demon?
Man #1: It's a beast!
Man #2: It's a monster!
Man #3: It's a demon!
Max: Ha! Ace Ventura always gets it!

Norman: You want me to break it?
Max: Never mind him, we gotta realign those satellites.
Virgil: I fear that will be impossible. Mega has created a force field around the controls.
Norman: You want me to break it?
Max: That's just about your favorite thing to do, isn't it Normie?

Computer: Please enter the access code.
Virgil: Oh dear. It will take me days to decipher this.
Norman: Allow me. [he punches the door and gets electrocuted]
Norman: Ho! Aah!
Computer: I'm sorry. "Ho, Aah" is not the correct access code. Please try again.
Max: Maybe we should knock?
Virgil: Knock?
Computer: "Knock Knock" is the correct access code.
[door opens]
Computer: Please come in, and wipe your feet.

Also on my weekly immature nostalgia list is BotsMaster, an AmericAnime, quasi-3d ultra-hip story of a billionaire genius and his hyper-advanced AI robot creations. Brought to you by the man, Avi Arad, the Executive Producer for the X-Men movies, the Spiderman movies, the Blade movies, the Punisher movies, and just about every other half-decent comic book adaptation to the big or small screen. It was a good premise, since only 5 characters are humans, and 5000 are robots, you can kill off main characters every week! With gigantic explosions! AND THEN REPAIR THEM! I tell ya, the producers must have had to change their underpants every five minutes thinking this one up. Even so, it was somewhat funny, and for a kid into sci-fi, COMPLETELY awesome to see transforming cars and roller-blading construction robots attacking heavily-armed Darth-Vader-wannabe assault droids. Did I mention the main characters name was Ziv Zoolander, and he had a 10 year old sister named Blitzy who often came along on his adventures to blow stuff up? Indeed. To sum up: When genius robot technician Ziv "ZZ" Zoolander discovers that his employers (RM Corps) have designs on world domination, he quits and tries to warn people about them. Branded an outlaw by their powerful boss Lewis Leon Paradim (LLP), ZZ and his bot-designer sister (Blitzy) are forced into hiding. His one advantage is the chip he developed, which gives his bots their own personalities, and enables them to think for themselves and fight intelligently. This makes them a powerful force against a huge but predictable army of security bots. RM Corps's attempts to upgrade their bots' firepower with their Krang chip are a constant danger. Their bot- designer (the oily Dr Hiss) desperately wants to capture a ZZ bot for examination, and ZZ must also avoid being distracted by LLP's gorgeous security chief, Lady Frenzy.

Yes, they call LLP LLP, and they call ZZ ZZ. This show was big on abbreviations. They had places to go, shit to blow up! The only truly classic quote that makes my teeth wiggle:

Yelled every single time right before a battle to make the cartoon switch to cell-shifting 3d:
Ziv Zoolander: It's LASER TIME, boys!

Did that scream "It's 1993, bitch!" or what?

And now, the theme song! Sing along!

Street Boyzz (Jammerzz & Toolzz): Greetings from the Street Boyzz

Jammerzz:
You know the planet is in a jam
A diabolical plan of only one man
Louis Leon Paradim an international punk
and his army of 3As are his piece of junk

Toolzz:
Yeah! Well he can't fade us
He forgot about the Boyzz and the guy who made us
Ziv Zulander, master of Boyzz bots

Street Boyzz: We undermine the plot

Sports Boyzz (Ace, Batzz & All Ball):
We're the Sports Boyzz and we like making noise
Commander jock has intelligent droids

Cook:
I'm cook, and I can take the heat
But don't forget, you are what you eat

Watzon:
Call me Watzon, let me swivel and say
I rock in the doc and I save the day

D'Nerd:
And D'Nerd is my name
And the brain is my game

Genesix:
I'm Genesix
Any problem I can fix

Ninjzz:
My name is Ninjzz
The battle hinges
And how I use my sword and while it singes

ZZ:
I'm Ziv Zoolander, ZZ for short
You know I fight the corp, I'm the Bots Master
Listen up you all, you're the Boyzz brigade
When it's laser time put on the 3D shades
Laser time Boyzz

Bots Master
Bots Master
Bots Master
Bots Master
Bots Master
Bots Master
Bots Master

Game Over

Friday, June 24, 2005

Diagnosed With A Fatal Disease...

... which is kinda depressing me for the past few days. I mean, I always suspected I had it, but I've never been able to get a doctor to confirm my suspicions, mostly since doctors hate it when you think you know more than they do, which, in most cases, I am finding out is true. Ingravesconimis Morbus is a serious and dangerous disease, but fortunately, it is easily cured. Ingravesconimis Morbus is more commonly known as You're Too Fat Disease.

You're Too Fat Disease can stike anyone, even perfectly skinny people such as myself. My normally chiselled good looks have been obscured by puffy, fleshy growths. My ripped abdominal muscles are nearly completely encased in layers of adipose tissue, and their removal is a very costly medical procedure. The manual method of removal is a very long, often multi-year process, and it is very difficult for people who have been stricken with this disease for long periods of time. I myself have been living with for over nine years.

I urge you, good people, who are reading this. Get yourself tested for Ingravesconimis Morbus, known on the street as Fat Bastarditis. You may be suffering from this horrible affliction, and not even know it, as it has been known to affect the brain and the vision, actually preventing itself from being discovered.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself, Brian.

From www.nuklearpower.com:

" Looks like Eidos is desperate to get some attention for a game without employing Lara. They must've heard that GTA Made You Do It, because their 25 to Life is the latest GTA-a-be that's got lazy, indulgent parents and clueless politicians worried.

Just wait until they see Saint's Row. But that's a discussion that'll have to wait for the next generation of killographic murderboxes.

What more do you want, parents? There's a rating system on the games now. Your only -- and may I say flimsy -- excuse was that you had no way of knowing what type of content might be found in a given video game.

Because lord knows you couldn't ask your kid. I mean, talk to your own child? About his or her interests? Being a part of your son or daughter's life? Crazy! Good thing you cried to the government instead. Now we've got that rating system you can completely ignore as if it was your kid.

I mean, seriously. They'll buy their twelve year old kids video games that simulate "realistic" violence and it's someone else's fault how, exactly? Would these parents let their kids wander into a porno theater with $50 and be surprised when they witness something as innocuous as Chitty, Chitty Gang Bang?

Of course not. You wouldn't let your kid within a mile of that place.

But when a video game box has "Rated M for Mature" plastered all over it, tells you what happens in the game on the back along with a couple screen shots, has a cover splattered in blood and a title like "Kill, Kill, Kill the Cops All Day Long", these mouth-breather parents throw their hands up in the air and lament to the government how can it possibly be legal to allow an industry to subsist entirely on chicanery and lies for no other purpose than to expose precious little Chandler Hunter Morgan to the 21st century's Clockwork Orange?

It's not like you're picking up a box that says Happy Sunshine Love only to find out that it contains a game that encourages you to skullfuck dogs and says things like All The Cool Kids Hurt Animals.

When precious Hunter Morgan Chandler gets his driver's license and careens off a cliff, are you going to sue the video games for having cars and cliffs that obviously trained your son to drive off a cliff because, "Everyone else was doing it, you get 10,000 points for a good explosion," or are you going to sue automakers for building cars that move forward? Hell, why not both! Awesome!

I think what bugs me the most about this tripe is that it's an argument built out of fantasy. And it's just the latest one. Is there a genetic timebomb inside of every generation? Does it go off at the exact moment the generation, as a collective or spirit right out of Planetary, realizes that its fate is not its own; that it's the next generation that'll keep the world running in the very near future? Does the sheer horror of that truth force them to imagine phantom threats to distract themselves from the inevitablity of change? Don't worry about the world you're giving to your kids, or that you've done nothing to prepare them intellectually or emotionally for the responsibility of running it. Worry instead about the comic books, the rock and/or roll music, the violent movies, and now video games!

"It's not my fault my kid doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, or fantasy and reality, it must be those darn video games I kept buying him in lieu of parenting."

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

I Never Thought I'd See The Day...

Microsoft warns of critical flaws...

... I feel faint. I have to go lie down.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Hey, The Pot And The Kettle Are BOTH Black!

China cencors US
US censors China

And it was amusing.

In other news, we might be moving to Barriere. If it's any help, people here in Kamloops think Barriere is a hick town. See above for pot-kettle references. Why would we move there, you ask? Well..... $104,000 for a quarter acre with a 3 bedroom house and a 1 bedroom house. The one bedroom house can be rented out for $550 a month. The mortgage and taxes would be $550 a month for the whole property, so we would basically be living on a three bedroom house on a quarter acre of our own land for free.

Now, personally, that seems like a good deal to me, because we'd be able to save up to build our own house in record time. Sure, it would bean a 40 minute highway commute every day, but I like driving, and it's a really nice, easy stretch of road. In addition, Barriere is right in the middle of a narrow valley, so it's temperate, the sun rises an hour later and sets two hours earlier. This place was MADE for my pale ass!

:) Short blog, nothing fun today. Jacko may be a batshit fucking loco psycho whackjob, but I guess it can't get him convicted. And lets be clear on this... he isn't innocent. He was FOUND innocent. In the same way that the Earth isn't flat, but everyone SAID the Earth was flat. What you say has no bearing on the truth.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Run! It's Hot! Hot, I Say!

Which is, of course, something that fat people like myself are not too fond of. Hot weather is kinda like our Kryptonite, which makes us everyone else's Kryptonite, because as soon as we start to simmer in full sunlight, the skinny people flee. Hopefully, the AC in the office will stop defying physics and stay where we set it.

Seriously, every day, sometimes two or three times a day, I'll have to turn the AC down to 21. I'll enjoy the cooler air, but an hour later I'll be sweating, and what do I find when I investigate? It's back up to 24. No-one in the office touched it (I can see it from my desk very easily), but the software constantly likes to reset itself to 24 degrees. This is very sucktacular, since 24 is quite painful for some reason.

Well, I don't mind. Someone brought donuts. Mmmm.... donuts.

EDIT: The donuts are day old. Fblearchgh.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I No Longer Have Head Explodey!

Or at least I seriously hope I don't, given that I have run out of medication. There's a little bit of lingering pain, but that might just be inflamed tissues, and not the bacteria re-loading their guns and mounting a counter-offensive against my noggin.

In other news, work is getting crazier as we get closer and closer to these buildings getting finished off. Of course, these buildings will NEVER get finished, in the sense of Xeno's paradox. The closer we get, the more details have to be drawn up, and while those changes are being implemented, a few less details will be needed. While those changes are being made, they'll find a few mistakes and we'll need new details, as well as revised old ones. And so on, until the Universe collapses at the corner of Tranquille and Sydney Ave.

I saw all this in a premonition yesterday as I was driving away from the jobsite. I looked in the rearview mirror, saw the pattern of raindrops in my rear window, and that somehow triggered the worst seizure I've had this year. I was halfway to Rayleigh before I remembered where I was supposed to be going, turned my car around on the highway, and headed back to the office. There was music I remembered, and someone in a hat, but mostly the raindrops in the windows was the major thing I recall, and the major reason for the seizure, which is odd, because it never has been before. Well, thats what I get for having a defective brain. Serves me right.

Well, back to work. I have to draw things that never existed, and may never exist. I feel like a cartoonist.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

What A Stupid Name For A Disease...

"Bacterial Sinusitis"

Sounds wussy, right? Sounds like a snuffle and a sore nose, eh? Well, in most cases, thats true. Viral sinusitis is just like a cold that won't go away, but eventually it does. Rarely does it lead to complications. However, 20% of these cases are bacterial, which are a lot more serious. This is what I have.

Bacterial sinusitis is preceeded by 10-14 days of cold-like nasal symptoms, which I had and mistook for allergies. They are often preceeded by an eye infection, which I just thought was due to me sneezing so much, and getting stuff in my eye. Then they are often mistaken for tooth problems, since the major sinus touches the root of the rear three teeth. I went to the dentist, and sure enough, he said I was fine. The pain peaked when I was in the dentist chair for some reason. Also, my back teeth went numb.

Now I am on penicillin, painkillers, decongestants and antihistamines, and the pain comes and goes. The numb section has moved from my back top right teeth to my front top right teeth, and the lip and cheek area around that. The feeling may come back in a few days, or weeks, or months, or never. I hope it's soon, this feels REALLY wierd, like after the dentist numbs part of your jaw. Food gets stuck back there, and I know I've chipped a numb tooth once already just because chewing is difficult.

The pain is now a muted throbbing along my cheekbone, nose, under my eye, and back to my ear (where I think the infection has spread), but it's mild compared to the stabbing I had on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Thursday I went home because it felt so bad, and Friday I got SENT home because I looked so bad.

So, yeah, thats been my week. Call me a wuss if you want, and I'll stab your head so we can share what it feels like.