It’s another Friday, so that means it’s time for another post to my Geek Journal!

This week, I’m going to cover some of the web sites that I like to regularly visit, be it for entertainment, news, or anything else. As most people know, the internet has a lot to offer.

In no particular order:

Engadget – I get a lot of my tech news from this site. They’re really good about keeping up with things as they’re released, plus I like their writing style.

Wikipedia – This is pretty much a given. Who hasn’t spent hours going from article to article? Someone has even created a “six degrees” game based on it.

Rockbox – This is an alternative firmware for several portable audio players, including iPods (at least up to the 5.5th generation). It has support for many more formats than most players have, it’s highly configurable, and it’s open source to boot.

Woot! – I’ve already mentioned this site in a previous post, but it’s worth mentioning again. I mean, who wouldn’t want a t-shirt with the DeLorean crashed into the TARDIS on it?

Google Maps – Possibly the best site to get directions from. If you want to get from Point A to Point B (and any points between), this is the site you want. It can also be fun to find interesting things or glitches in the aerial and street view pictures.

That’s enough sites for now; I’ll add more to this list in future posts.

Anyone out there still using the Windows 7 Beta that was released this past January? I really hope not, as it is to permanently expire tomorrow, August 1st. Anyone running the Release  Candidate (like myself) doesn’t have to worry about this until June 1st of next year. I plan on having the release version installed soon after it comes out this October. ^^

I’ll close out this post with a question to anyone reading: Out of all the fictional things you’ve seen/read/played (movies, TV shows, anime, comics, games, etc.), what do you wish was actually in the real world? Examples would be zombies running amok, people developing mutant abilities like in X-Men, or magical girls running around battling evil. My choice would be the holodeck from the Star Trek universe, mainly because you could probably mimic anything you’ve seen in fiction with it.

That’s it for this post, see you next week!

Greetings, Borrowers!

Most of you are familiar with Sam Raimi – if not by name, then by his body of work: the Evil Dead series, the Spider-Man movies, or the recently released, instant horror classic Drag Me to Hell.  In between those well-known films, Raimi has managed to build himself a decent portfolio of film work, including Darkman and The Quick and the Dead.

But there’s one film on his resume that most people may not be familiar with.  Even Sam Raimi himself has tried to pretend he isn’t familiar with it.  The film in question was his second studio film after Evil Dead.  Called Crimewave (The XYZ Murders if you’re overseas), this little turd burger of a cult classic is a perfect example of how a movie studio can take all the hard work you’ve done to create what has the potential to be a classic film and punch it repeatedly in the face.

Let’s start with the perfect ingredients, shall we?  First, you have a decent script that combines slapstick, film noir, and black comedy co-written by Sam Raimi and the Coen Brothers (you know, those guys who have made some classic films of their own like Fargo, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, and No Country For Old Men).  Next, you put Raimi himself in the director’s chair.  Then, you cast everyone’s favorite Old Spice spokesman Bruce Campbell as the leading man.

Sounds like a recipe for a great flick, right?

Unfortunately, Embassy Pictures had different ideas.  Cutting portions of the script, recasting Campbell’s part with an unknown, and slapping the crew with “excruciatingly specific and alternately vague demands” under a small budget made filming conditions a literal hell.  By the time filming had completed, the movie had gone way over budget and schedule, and Embassy continued to butt heads with Raimi over things like producing credits and scoring.

After all of the dust settled and the smoke cleared, Crimewave hit theaters with a resounding thud.  Raimi quickly and quietly disassociated himself with the film, going on to make other films that looked much better on his resume.

Meanwhile, Crimewave found its way to pay-TV and VHS in the mid- to late 80s where it slowly picked up steam to become a cult classic.  In fact, it’s so cult, the cult itself doesn’t even realize that it likes the movie.  But, over the past couple of decades VHS copies have become highly sought after, especially since it’s been the only way anyone could see the film.

Until now, that is.  A couple of weeks ago I had the displeasure of catching it on one of the Encore channels.  Having not seen it since I was a kid, I decided to record it on TiVo and gave it a look-see this past weekend.

You’re welcome.

After watching it I have one thing to say – the film is a mess.  But, it’s a completely insane, madcap kind of mess.  This easily falls into that category of “so bad it’s good” kind of films.  The plot (what there is of one) is kind of simple – two guys share a partnership of a security company.  One guy decides to secretly sell the business out from under the other partner’s nose.  The other partner finds out and hires two crazy exterminators (“We Kill All Sizes”) to off the traitor.  Soft, sweet, and clumsy milquetoast guy who works for the company gets caught in the middle while trying to woo the girl of his dreams.  Crazy exterminators decide to kill practically everyone they come across.

This manages to carry itself out for just under an hour and a half.  The film really just boils down to a series of Three Stooges-style gags (a Raimi trademark) married to a darkly comedic take on mass murder, all of which lead up to the predictable happy ending.  Wanna know the weird thing?  I still enjoyed the hell out of it.  The movie is hopelessly flawed, with horrible editing and the camp level turned up to “11”, but darn it if I didn’t laugh quite frequently throughout.  I mean, this movie is so out there that you find yourself laughing at the most inane things no matter how lame they are.  I really had fun watching this movie.  It’s just a shame that we couldn’t have gotten the movie Sam Raimi had intended.

All that said, I think that this is one of those movies that could go great with a small group of friends, some delicious snacks, maybe a beer or two, and some witty banter.  In fact, I’m really surprised that MST3K never tried to acquire the rights to take a crack at this film.  Maybe the Riff Trax crew could tackle it, if the movie ever comes out on DVD.

Until then, I think I’ll keep it on my TiVo for awhile.

The Don used a Shemp to write this.

Ahhhh…welcome back, boils and ghouls! Here we are, for another spine-tingling installment of Tales from the Video Game Phobia Crypt!

(*Sigh*….It just doesn’t have the same ring to it. And don’t ever let me channel the Cryptkeeper again.)

Here I am, back in the land of the living! Not even lengthy power outages can keep me from posting! (Except for the part where they DID…but I’m back now, at least for the moment. A few of you will get me when I shout “TOSHIIII!!!!!”) Before we dive in, I’d like to warn all two of my readers that I likely won’t get to post next week. I’ll be hitting the beach, and not only will I not have Internet access there, I’m not sure when I’ll be near a computer again before the end of next week. So instead of promising you a late post, I’ll play it safe and just say, if it happens, if happens. If it doesn’t…well, I’ll be seeing you August 11th with the webcomic review that was due the 4th!

And now for something completely different.

Last time, I delved into real-life phobias carrying over into video games. This time, I’ll talk a bit about a phenomenon unique to video games: phobias that originate from the games themselves. Again, we’ll be using one of my own as an example.

Now, let’s start off by stating that I love me some ocean. I don’t like to swim in it so much, but that’s only because the fish seem to be under the impression that my toes are a free meal. But I don’t have any real-life phobia of the open water….Well, maybe just a smidge of apprehension because you never know what’s under the surface. (Ask my sister how much the jellyfish love her toes!) But that’s what we call Playing It Safe, kids. Always respect the water. And wait thirty minutes after eating to go in.

Oh, 2D gaming, how I miss thee. Swimming in the water and dodging Cheep-Cheeps was such a breeze before the era of 3D games….

Super Mario 64. The game that turned the water’s deeps into a bloody playground of terror (minus the blood). I ain’t afraid of no water! I’ll just jump off this here Jolly Roger ship and take a peek at what’s under the surface, and OH MY GOD THAT GIGANTIC HUGE BLOODY GREAT EEL CAME OUT OF NOWHERE AND CHOMPED ME. WHERE DID THAT THING COME FROM?! OH THE HORROR! OH THE HUMANITY! OH THE RIPPING POLYGONS!

Remember Unagi the eel? It was all fun and video games until his bulk filled your TV screen and whacked the air supply out of you with one sweep of his tail. Here’s a 1:04 video showing the stage where you’re actually supposed to get right up in his face and make him come out to attack you.

Are you out of your freakin’ mind, Nintendo?! “Can the Eel Come out to Play?” Heck no, the eel can’t come out to play! Make him stay home! My mom says he’s a bad influence.

Are you laughing at me? Look, those were some swanky graphics back in the day. Low-resolution polygons be darned–that huge blank stare struck fear into the heart of this formerly-fearless gamer! My sister had to complete all the water stages after that. For me, this began my descent down a dark road of paranoia. The water was safe no longer. At least, not in Mario’s world. (Oddly, I never had a problem playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s underwater segments. Maybe because I knew that there were no subaqueous enemies outside of the Water Temple, and inside the Water Temple was almost like being on land.)

Most of the games I played since that time didn’t involve water combat or going underwater, so my fear of Unagi and the unknown depths went largely forgotten…until four months ago, when I finally caught up to the rest of the gaming world and started playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I emerged from the beginning sewer dungeon into a world of beautiful, expansive landscapes, fearless and ready for my next challenge (finding clothes for my character, if this screenshot I took is any indication)….

….But wait, what’s that moving under the surface of the water? Is that…is that a huge, ugly, fang-filled fish that probably wants to eat my face and then swallow my bones? Why, yes, according to this link, I do believe it is! What is this cold terror that grips my heart? Oh, hallo, water phobia, I thought we’d fallen out of touch over a decade ago. What are you doing here again? OH GODS NO I ACCIDENTALLY FELL OFF THE DOCK AND INTO THE WATER. GET ME TO SHORE NOW!!!! SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM OH THANK ALL THE NINE DIVINES I made it to the shore again. Let’s just hyperventilate over here for about five minutes until my hearts stops running a marathon, okay? Sooooo not going for a swim again.

I don’t live with my family anymore, so getting my sister to kill these aquatic monstrosities, appropriately called Slaughterfish, was not an option. Luckily, my housemate (who’s also the one who introduced me to Oblivion) was game to take care of any large fanged fish that needed killing. Which was awesome, since there’s a quest that requires you to kill a dozen of these horrific things, swimming in some of the darkest, murkiest water in the game, which only makes the phobia worse. (Luckily, I play on the PC, and was soon able to install an unofficial mod that makes the water crystal-clear. No less frightening, though.)

It’s odd how something that you know isn’t real can frighten you more than what you know IS real. A real body of water doesn’t make me blink, but put me in a virtual ocean of unknown terrors….I suppose that’s why horror movies are so popular. But you can have your axe murderers–if you want to scare me, set your thriller movie in Jolly Roger Bay.

Surely I can’t be the only one out there who’s too chicken to face certain parts of video games. Anyone care to admit their gaming weaknesses?….Yeah, I don’t blame you. I probably wouldn’t admit it, either.

And now, it’s time for me to meet some great friends for some good sushi. You call it dinner. I call it revenge.

P.S. Does my arachnophobia from my last post get triggered by Oblivion? Take a look at this link and decide. Giving them the upper half of an attractive woman doesn’t numb the fear quite as much as you’d expect, once they start moving.

Welcome to this week’s posting of my Geek Journal!

Let’s jump right in to things, shall we?

Time for another rant, but this time it’s more geek-based. I really want to say that I believe that Nintendo has really dropped the ball when it comes to its network abilities. With both Sony and Microsoft, you have an actual online account that you’re able to link up with friends via. This way, you’re able to log in on different consoles and still be able to communicate with your friends. Nintendo’s method: You have a console-specific code that you have to share with friends. If your console dies, you have to go through the entire motion again. And this is only to be able to send messages through the console’s main menu!

Then there’s playing games together online (the recently released Ghostbusters game is a great example ^^): With Sony/Microsoft, your game already knows if your friends are playing it as well (the PS3’s menu will even tell you what they’re playing; not sure about the 360) and you easily link up within the game. With Nintendo’s games, you have another code that is separate from your console code that you also have to share with your friends. And it will also change if you’re forced to get a new console.

Next is DLC, which stands for DownLoadable Content: While you can download old and new games on all three main consoles, the PS3 and 360 both have large amounts of content available for their existing games (either disc- or download-based), while Nintendo has had very little (a great idea would’ve been to allow for new characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl); even the Wii versions of Rock Band and Guitar Hero have nowhere near as much DLC as their PS3 and 360 cousins.

One main reason for this is the amount of space available on the major consoles: The PS3 has hard drive sizes up to 160 GB and is easily user-upgradable to 500+ GB (using standard 2.5 inch SATA drives for laptops), and while the 360’s hard drive isn’t as easy to upgrade (the drives are in a special case that connects to the 360 and only one size is really available), it is plenty large at 120 GB. When the Wii was released, it was limited to its internal non-upgradable storage that is 512 MB (that’s half a GB) and whatever you copy over (but not use from) to a 2 GB SD card. Nintendo has enhanced this a little, updating the firmware to be able to read SDHC cards (up to 32 GB) and have the ability to play your downloaded games from the cards… well, sort of; it copies the content to the internal storage to run it.

These points go to show that Nintendo should really rethink its networking strategies and maybe borrow some ideas from Sony and Microsoft.

Before I go, I wanted to give a reminder to head writer Donnie Sturges that he is to check out the original short film for the upcoming feature-length version of 9. You can find a copy of it on YouTube here. ^^ Speaking of films with “9″ in their title, word is that District 9 is looking to be the best science fiction movie of the year; I’m looking forward to both.

See you next week!

Greetings, Copycats!

Anyone who’s a geek should at least be familiar with the bacon-wrapped awesome that is Mystery Science Theater 3000.   Created by comedian Joel Hodgson, MST3K (what the cool kids call it) started off as a small, local cable show in Minnesota.  With a practically non-existent budget, MST3K was simply a group of funny guys putting together cheap sets and purchasing old films on the cheap so that they could make fun of them on camera for viewers tuning in to KTMA-TV.

The result was nothing short of a phenomenon (doot do da doo doot!).  The show ended up catching the attention of the right people and soon Mystery Science Theater 3000 was picked up for syndication on then fledgling cable network The Comedy Channel.

MST3K ended up doing seven seasons total between The Comedy Channel and its later incarnation of Comedy Central.  CC eventually gave it the boot, at which time SyFy the Sci Fi Channel was kind enough to give it a home for another three.  The show even got its own feature film!  Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to keep the show on the air, and after 10 seasons MST3K was done.

But…

You can’t keep the MSTies down.  Over the past several years, MST3K is still as popular as ever, as evidenced by the impressive sales of each DVD set that comes out.  And the creative minds involved with Mystery Science Theater 3000 have also remained active.  Over the past few years, several of the former cast members of MST3K have continued MSTing movies for the amusement of fans everywhere with new stuff like Riff Trax, The Film Crew and Cinematic Titanic.  While two of them continue the grand tradition of riffing on old b-movie stinkers, one of them has gone outside the box a bit to allow fans the chance to see what riffing would be like with the mainstream movies they love or love to hate.

I’ll give you a hint – I’ve been dropped a variation of their name a couple of times in the last sentence.

Riff Trax was created by Mike Nelson, the guy who replaced Joel Hodgson part way though the show during the Comedy Central days.  As I said before, Riff Trax steps outside the box (office) a bit by not being a show where you watch a couple of guys peanut-gallery a bad movie.  No – instead what you get is an audio file of a couple of guys making fun of a movie you may already own or be renting.  Mike (and whoever decides to riff with him that day) watch mainstream movies like The Matrix or Daredevil and record their riffing into an audio file that you can play while you watch the same movie in the privacy of your own home.  This not only gets around the issue of having to pay movie rights, but it also allows fans to see what MST3K could have been like if they could do popular films.

Do you know where I was going with all this?  Ha – neither do I.  Okay, yes I do.  My whole point to this installment was to share my excitement over the fact that Mike Nelson is doing Riff Trax live in Tennessee on August 20^th.  The movie?  Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Accompanied by his fellow MSTies Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, this installment of Riff Trax will be broadcast to theaters all over the country.  If you are a fan of any of the above-mentioned shows, you’ll want to check this out.  Tickets are already available here (http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Comedy/RiffTrax.aspx).

I plan on going to the local showing in my area.  Hopefully it won’t involve being shot into space.

If you’re wondering how the Don eats and breathes, and other science facts – it’s all CG.

There’s no denying that video games have had a huge impact on society, even upon those who don’t play them. In the early 1990s, a survey revealed that more people recognized Mario than Mickey Mouse. A certain disbarred lawyer afflicted with, shall we say, “a lack of total sanity” had his career shattered by his misguided attempts to have video games criminalized. And let’s not forget the money brought in every year by games and the merchandise and events they spawn (Penny Arcade Expo, anyone?)

With an epic opener like that, you’d probably think I’m getting into some really deep discussion territory here. My friend, you’d be wrong.

I’m going to talk about a phenomenon unique to video games: game phobias. Specifically, my own.

In the “real world,” phobia-wise, I’m probably best known for being terrified of anything vaguely arachnid-like. But that didn’t matter in video games! I’ve sliced my fair share of crab/spider-like Gohmas in the land of Hyrule, as well as stomped the nasty little web-spinning buggers (or should I say, arachners? Or just spiders?) in various 2D platform games. Oh, fighting and destroying spiders was all fun ‘n’ games when all the action was in two dimensions. It was blissful revenge for all the times those little jerks made their webs right over the head of my bed.

Then video games decided it was time to step things up a bit, and went 3D.

I’ll never forgive you, Ocarina of Time.

The very first level of The Legend of Zelda’s initial foray into 3D gaming. Absolutely crawling with various species of Skulltula, the new giant spiders of the Zelda universe. I thought the first level was supposed to take it easy on you! Give you a feel for the game! Apparently no one told the Great Deku Tree dungeon that. I remember s-l-o-w-l-y inching my way through that tree, jumping every time a spider dropped out of nowhere. The scratching sounds of the Gold Skulltulas told me where to find them, but they also wreaked havoc on my nerves, knowing that soon, I’d have to face another arachnid. (The fact that there’s one in there you don’t kill until later in the game didn’t help. Its presence taunted me, reminding me that I’d have to come get it if I wanted to complete the Gold Skulltula sidequest. And you’d better believe I did want to. I was going to eliminate every spider in Hyrule.)

Then I came to the darkened boss room, where I heard skittering along the ceiling and saw little bits of debris falling from where the as-yet-unseen boss knocked them loose. My heart rate jumped up by about nine times over. I was going to fight a giant spider. I knew it. But the game couldn’t be happy just letting me know what I was going to face and then triggering the fight once I entered the room. Oh, no, it forced me to look for the giant spider Gohma; the battle doesn’t start until you make first-person eye contact with the traumatizingly-ugly thing. I believe it took me a good fifteen minutes to get up the courage to switch to first-person mode and look around.

The actual battle itself is a bit of a blur. I believe it largely consisted of me jumping and flinching nervously in my seat and constantly yelping out words that aren’t repeatable on this site. Eventually, though, I was victorious, and Skulltulas largely became a bad memory until the Forest Temple–except for the gold ones that inevitably landed on my head when I rolled into trees. And the people who had been turned into Skulltulas in Kakariko Village. The head of the family, with his giant spider’s body and contorted human arm and face, still makes me shiver…as does his plaintive scream when you attack the vulnerable belly.

GAAAH! I don’t want your money–I want to NEVER SEE YOUR ANTI-ALIASED FACE WITHIN 500 MILES OF ME AGAIN!!

Ugh….I…I need a hot shower. And a family-size flyswatter.

You know, Ocarina of Time is actually the genesis of many of my in-game fears. Remember the creepy woman-scream of the ReDeads? The strange bloody spots and organic-looking waste in the Kakariko Village well dungeon? The Kakariko Village graveyard and its many secrets? (Is it just me, or is Ocarina’s Kakariko Village a neverending source of Lovecraftian horror?) The deep, dark shadows that might or might not conceal face-eating enemies, just waiting to get a little taste of Legendary Hero?

I never got scared playing a video game until the fifth Zelda title came along. (My forays into the survival horror genre came later. Don’t even get me STARTED on Resident Evil 2, with its own giant spiders and its Lickers.) But what I’ve addressed here is a phobia that already existed for me in the “real world” and merely carried over to the in-game world. Stick with me, and next time, we’ll dive even deeper into game world phobias by addressing ones that exist only while playing video games.

….And yes, it took a lot of guts–and a little hyperventilating–for me to include spider-filled screenshots in this post. And I now know I may never be able to complete The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess because of THIS:

If you don’t see anything frightening about that picture, then, my friend, you are crazy.

Been quiet around here lately, so I thought it would be the perfect time for another installment of “The Don Says…”

Some of you may have already heard the sad news about “Futurama”.  Just when we were seeing proof that the Great Sneeze exists thanks to the return of “Futurama” in a series of movies and a sweet return to a regular series, word come down that Fox has decided not to bring back the original voice actors for said new series.

Are you serious?!

Fox’s reasoning is that the salary demands of the actors are too high for them to fit into their plan of slimming the budget and firing a couple of writers.  In other words, Fox continues to not learn the lesson that keeps hammering against their collective heads of knuckle – quit crapping on gold when it is handed to you.  So, goodbye to what could have been a great return to form for a great show.

In happier news, the BBC has released a new promo image of the new Doctor in his new garb, along with his new cutie companion.  The Doc’s duds are a classy shade of 1930’s college professor, bowtie and all.  My only concern is that it look like the TARDIS has been redesigned as well.  Why the concern?  It looks brand new.  I’ve always felt that the worn and weathered look of the TARDIS was part of what gave it its character.  Not sure I’m liking the new design.

The official BBC site has their promo pic up, but you can check out more by making with the clicky here.

Another Friday and another post to my Geek Journal (no break this week! ^^)!

Let’s see… how about some quickies this week?

Engadget.com did a post about this interesting wall clock where the minute and second hands don’t revolve around the normal central point, instead revolving around the end point of the previous hand (minute around hour, second around minute). A video is also included to show it running. A neat thing to have, but it’s probably somewhat expensive and there were only 20 made in total (plus one for the artist).

This coming Monday (July 20), SquareEnix will release their next update to Final Fantasy XI, which will include the newest mini-expansion: A Moogle Kupo d’Etat: Evil in Small Doses. New Ninja job abilities are also to be included, but I haven’t leveled my NIN enough to make use of them. >_>

I mentioned last week that I gave my mom my old HDTV (an LG 37″ 720p LCD). After giving her a taste of what HD looks like, she started talking about how she wants to look into upgrading to an HD television service (either with her current cable company or by switching to AT&T’s Uverse service) and getting a Blu-ray player. I think I’ve created a monster. o.o

I went and hooked up a console I had been neglecting for a while: my Wii. Sad, but true. It was several updates behind on the firmware as well (version 4.1 just came out two days ago), so I took care of that, and also updated the Homebrew Channel  stuff that is on it. I’m sorry, Nintendo, but there just haven’t been many games that interested me on the Wii that didn’t also come out on the PS3, though Final Fantasy IV: The After Years has gotten my interest and I may have to purchase that sometime soon. My Xbox 360 has been looking somewhat dusty as well. >_>

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released in theatres a couple days ago, but I won’t be going to see it. I haven’t really kept up with the HP films (I’ve only seen the first two) mainly because I’ve already read all of the books. Maybe in the future I’ll get around to renting or buying them, but for now if I want to re-live Harry’s adventures, I’ll sit down with one of the books. ^^

That’s it for this week!

Greetings, Ice Pirates!

Ugh.  And the summer of busy writings continues.

Speaking of summer…

We’re smack dab in the middle of this one, although you’d never know it in some of the northern parts of the, well, north.  One of the problems that used to plague the summer season many moons ago was that all of the networks went on repeat hiatus until fall.  Then, all the shows boob tube viewers were waiting all summer for would start back up.  Everyone would be happy (Except for kids, as it also meant going back to school.  Yuck.)

Well, nowadays, we don’t have to worry about such irritations.  Now, by the Power of Greyskull, summers no longer have to be spent outside hanging out with friends, going to amusement parks, having picnics, going on road trips, killing hobos.  Nope.  The networks have shown their true love for their children by filling our magic picture boxes with new programming that will keep us safe from the harmful rays of the summer sky ball.

And doggonit it if I haven’t gotten addicted to yet another one of them.  You may have heard of it:

“Burn Notice”

It took me almost two and a half seasons to realize what a little gem this show is.  One of USA’s most popular shows (do they even know how to make a crappy show?), “Burn Notice” is about a US spy who gets dumped and blacklisted in the middle of a covert operation for his country.  When this happens, it’s called getting a “burn notice”.  Barely escaping with his life, Michael Weston (our hero) wakes up to find himself trapped in his hometown of Miami, with the feds keeping an eye on him so he won’t leave. 

The whole mission statement of the show is simple – Michael tries to find out who put the burn notice on him while using his skills to do odd jobs to help local folks who are being picked on by crooked types.  Helping him is an old friend named Sam who used to be a Navy Seal (Hey kids, it’s Bruce Campbell!  Applause!), as well as an ex-girlfriend, ex-IRA member named Fiona.  Also on tap to cause no shortage of annoyance is his mom and brother – two characters who bring back a lot of painful family memories for Michael.

This show is excellent for a number of reasons.  First and foremost – the Chin himself is a main member of the cast!  Of course, once I you can get past that glowing pillar of awesome, you’ll find that the show is an excellent mixture of the best aspects of “The A-Team”, “Magnum P.I.”, and “MacGuyver”.  The show is well written, with a nice balance between the “job of the week” and the over-arcing storyline of Michael trying to discover who blacklisted him.  Add to that a dash of humor and some well-played narration by the main character throughout each episode and you have a fine, little show that manages to keep you hooked while you wait for your fall shows to come home.

I’m in the middle of the second season right now, while the show itself is halfway through its third.  But, I expect to be all caught up by the time summer is over.  Thanks, USA!  You saved me from the horrors of the outside!

The Don got blacklisted once.  Or was that blacklit?  Which one has all the glowy colors?

Being a gamer, it naturally follows that I’d love remixed video game music. The talented folks over at OverClocked ReMix and VGMix have seen my patronage for the better part of the past decade.

Years ago, I downloaded pretty much the entire stock of both sites (before VGMix went down for several years), but Life conspired to Get In The Way, and I didn’t listen to much of my stash until recent months. Somehow, I managed to whittle down over 5 gigabytes of music and add the winners to my collection. I just completed the final weeding right before writing this, in fact. Of course, playing so many songs in rapid succession means you pick up on running themes in the composition of the tracks. And then you realize that some of those themes are more like annoying clichés, having been used and reused and done to death, then done even more until the resulting track rises up again as a shambling musical zombie, and you’re forced to grab a shotgun and put a hole in its head to end its eternal misery.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. In actuality, the head-shooting is achieved merely by hitting the delete button on your keyboard. I guess I’m just boring that way. Also, I don’t own a shotgun. I know whose house gets swarmed first by the upcoming zombie apocalypse hordes~!

So! In celebration of increasing my music collection while decreasing the strain on my hard drive, I decided to make up this list for your reading pleasure. If you’re an aspiring remixer or a current composer, here’s the clichés of video-game remixing that you might wanna avoid:

1. Putting a generic drum and bass beat in the background and doubling the tempo doesn’t make it a rave mix.

2. If you’re doing a Zelda remix of “Epona’s Theme” you really do not need to have repeated sound effects of horses neighing. They just clash with your music.

3. If you’re doing a Mario remix, you don’t need to have sound clips of Mario shouting “Here we go!” and “Wheeeeee!”

4. Likewise, if you’re doing a Castlevania remix, you don’t need to have whip-cracking sound effects. I’m serious. No, really, you don’t need them. Especially not in what seems like every single remix.

5. You don’t need sound bites from media that have nothing to do with your remix. This includes tacking clips from Fight Club, Kill Bill, or The Breakfast Club at the beginning/middle/end of your Final Fantasy track. It also includes random whispering and fuzzy conversations.

6. If your song involves rain (example: remixing Zelda’s “Song of Storms”), having gentle rainfall in the background is nice. Not so nice are loud lightning cracks and thunderclaps overpowering the music all throughout the track.

7. Never ever make a country music remix of your favourite video game theme. I’m begging you.

8. There’s no law that says all Castlevania remixes have to be heavy metal. (Although some of the awesome ones I’ve heard sometimes make me think there should be such an edict.)

9. If you don’t have a professional-quality microphone, don’t put your voice in the track.

10. Related to #9: the chances of you being a bad singer/rapper are much higher than the chances of you being the next MC Frontalot. Please take this into consideration before you fire up that mic!

Welp, that about wraps it up for this jaded old gamer. Come back next time! But for now, get off my lawn, you darn kids.