Mushroom Memories

This is a little bit of post-filching. I didn't write this but found it on one of the boards I frequent, and I thought I'd share it here. (You have to sign up to see any posts, so I can't link it.)

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(posted by) AceHazard
#6911 Posted (12/21/05 7:36AM)

I think it’s safe to say that everyone has played Super Mario Brothers. It’s just a part of growing up, like eating sand or playing with dolls. Ahh, I love reflecting back to my youthful days of sand-eating, Barbie-brushing, and Mario-playing. But have you ever stopped and realized what the hell was really going on in that game?

Premise: You are a plumber who is trying to save a Princess from a dragon-esque monster in a castle.

Characters:
Mario – The hero of the game. He is a stereotypical Italian plumber with a large moustache. Nobody is really sure how he arrived in the strange world, but he’s here, rife with plumber goodness. He also has a hard time matching colors for his outfits. He has a brother named Luigi, but nobody really cares about Luigi. Luigi is like Tito Jackson, in that Luigi is black and hasn’t sold many records. Wait, that didn’t make any sense at all. Scratch that.

Bowser – I think he’s part dog, part Carrot Top, and part dragon. He shoots fire, faces one direction, and jumps around spontaneously. He can also fall in lava multiple times without dying. He usually swims from lava to lava to arrive at the next castle in his queer empire. For safety precautions, he keeps a lever around which disintegrates the bridge he usually stands on. I’m not sure why they keep these levers around, it’s probably the same reason we have a “permanent press” setting on irons. If it was a permanent press, why would we need the iron? Talk about crazy!

Princess – A princess. I don’t think she has a name in this one. “Princess” is probably just a nickname like “Prince”, or “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” or “Prince Who Was Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”. Nobody really knows what she governs, or why Bowser didn’t kidnap a king of a queen. Maybe she has super powers, or maybe she’s hot if you don’t see her in her pixelized, three-color form. Regardless, I don’t want to think about a woman and a dog/Carrot Top/dragon combination having sex. Actually, I really just don’t want to think about Carrot Top. Damned dirty Carrot Top.

Goombas – These are little brown mushrooms that walk around scowling all day. If I were a mushroom with facial features, I’d scowl too. I mean, come on, you’re a mushroom; nobody respects you. Plants laugh at you, bacteria make jokes behind your back. You are a fungus, my friend, get used to it.

Koopa Troopas – They’re turtles. They walk on their hind legs. Sometimes they fly. Enough said.

Bullet Bills – Giant bullets the size of Rosie O’Donnell. Also, like Rosie they move very slowly and nobody likes them. You can jump on them and make them go away, hopefully one day the same can be done for Rosie. And if Bullet Bills had a morning talk show, I wouldn’t watch it either.

Hammer Brothers – Look out! Turtles with an infinite supply of hammers! Why do they have hammers? Why do they keep throwing them? Why don’t the hammers ever hit the ground? Why don’t they ever run out? Hammer Brothers are an enigma, wrapped in a paradox, and sealed with a conundrum. They also make the game that much more irritating as they’re pretty much impossible to kill. I mean, have you ever stepped on a hammer with shoes on? I did, and I shrunk to half of my size. It took forever to find a mushroom to eat, believe me!

Little beetle things that nobody knows the name for – They’re, uh.. beetles. They’re actually normal, except they have hard shells and you can kick them around.

Toad – A happy mushroom fellow that Bowser keeps in a burlap sack. He’s easily mistaken for a princess by Mario. I guess it doesn’t matter when they’re.. in the sack! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Locutu Lokutututu Lokutuaeultjaldocuel Loajsdlfkjcl Lcoasdflakj – Whatever the hell that floating cloud guy is that drops spiny things. Damn him and his infernal spine-shooting cloud machine.

Gameplay: You start out large. If you run into anything, you somehow shrink. It’s kind of like when I’m walking down the street and I run into somebody, then I shrink to half my size. I hate when that happens. Don’t worry though, to return to your large size, all you have to do is bash your head against floating bricks or flashing boxes with question marks on them, and then run into the mushroom that comes out. Makes sense, doesn’t it? You can also eat flowers, which allows you to shoot fireballs out of your nose somehow. After hopping around floating bricks, jumping on ugly creatures, and traveling through green pipes, you dry hump a flagpole to signify your completion of a level. Once I complete a task at work, I usually dry hump the finished masterpiece until a number like “1000” dissipates from it, so I could really relate to this game, about as much as a man in Alabama can relate to his wife. RELATE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Once you beat three levels, you are transported to a castle of some sort. Like any castle, it has floating question marks, sticks of lava, lava pits, fireballs, and moving platforms. Bowser awaits at the end of 8 different castles, despite how many times you kill him. He’s kind of like Tupac; Tupac is dead, and he comes out with a new song every day. It’s craziness.

Bonuses: If you somehow manage to cram 100 oddly-placed coins (I’m not sure what the use of currency is here, I guess the mushroom people must have an economy set up of some sort) into wherever you store things you get a 1-up. You can also travel through green pipes to secret underground bank areas with floating coins. I had a floating coin one time, but I let go of the string and it flew away. Oh, wait, that was a balloon. Sometimes I get confused. Also, if you can find the magic vine that grows out of bricks, you can climb it and run around on clouds, collecting coins. But only if you find it, the vine won’t come to you.

Basically, Mario is a drug-induced hallucination about princesses, mushrooms, dragons, and Carrot Top.
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And to top it off, we have a little Mario Marimba.

Ah, the nostalgia.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

And many more.
It's the year of the dog, in case you were wondering.
Now excuse me whilst I go have some fun ;D

My cold, or whatever it was, is finally getting better. Still have a cough, though.

Today I had a massive fit of OCD and cleaned my entire room. Actually, "scourged" might be a better word for it. I vaccumed the floor about 4 times, then my futon, desk, and curtains. Which is a feat of oddity since the vaccum has no attachments. Luckily my arms have developed a bit more strength since I arrived here. My cleaning spree spilled out into the common area until I decided to eat. And then I decided to pull that drawer back out from under the bed (it somehow got pushed back there the first night I was here, but I was never motivated to lift the bed and pull it back out.) Basically a lot of stuff that maybe I was putting off or wouldn't normally do with my free time.

So, enough about me. Let's talk fun stuff. I, for one, like videogames, so let's talk about the next installment of the Elderscroll RPG series: Oblivion. This is probably the first time I've actually anticipated the release of a game. And if you're looking for a timetable, you can see in the article that he says "since starting this project two years ago;" and this was a statement released more than a year ago. They're investing over three years of effort into this, and in the trailers you can see it (let's face it: the screenshots don't do it justice). I downloaded them and was exponentially impressed by the freedom movement, the level of interation with the environment, real-time landscape generation and animation, and most especially the Radient AI.
Here's a quote to fill you in on this feature: "Radient AI... gives non-player characters (NPCs) the ability to make their own choices based on the world around them. They'll decide where to eat or who to talk to and what they'll say. They'll sleep, go to church, and even steal items, all based on their individual characteristics. Full facial animations and lip-synching, combined with full speech for all dialog, allows NPCs to come to life like never before."
Combine that with the fractal coding for the generation of realistic forests and landscapes, the physics engine that calculates how hard you've hit a log and whether it will roll down a hill, and all that other good stuff; can you image the sort of processing power this is going to take? I doubt that my laptop will be able to take it. Which is ironic, since their last game, Morrowind, was too much for my last PC to handle.
The good news is that dear ol' Eris meets the spec requirements for Guild Wars, which is, according to a little birdie, patiently awaiting my return back in San Antonio. Yay!

And yes, I am a geek. Thank you, and goodnight.




Love,
-the Photoshop CG-whore.




(I know, the hair could use a little work...)

Toyko gets earthquakes...

... and we get the flu. I'm going to need one of those masks for sure. So stylin' this time of year.

So, sorry about the lapse in updates. Been busy with last-minute things, and then too tired to bother with setting up my laptop to use the internet downstairs. I really appreciated the calls I got, both for my birthday and for Christmas. Love you guys! And I got my presents in the mail: a Green Day CD and a lovely necklace, padded with candy canes and some articles of warm clothing.

Which I need. Because last week...
...
IT SNOWED! During the day, even!

Sorry, no pics just yet. I'm trying to acquire a few from people who have actual cameras. I'm also reluctant to email myself anymore pics via phone because the service charge adds another $30 to my bill, depending on how many I send. :P

And then there was a Christmas Eve party at the dorm. Lots of people. Lots. And really good food too. For the rest of the vacation, I don't really have much planned. Definitely need to get in touch with my host sister so I can give her the muffler I made. I should probably study too.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

It's really Tuesday.

I'm not sure why that last entry was posted under Sunday. I'm pretty sure it was Monday afternoon. And now it's 2:30 am on Tuesday. Just thought I should do a little chronological orientation here.
So, I was up at 8 on Sunday morning, ran out the door to meet Angelo head for the train station. We ended up getting on the wrong train, going the completely opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. By the time we arrived, the teachers had already finished setting up. So, we did our native English-speaking thing, entertained the kids and whatnot. They dressed me up in a Santa apron and hat to read a story. My highlight was at the end, when everyone was milling around and I looked over to the non-participants seating. A little girl stuck her tongue out at me, and I returned the gesture with my trifold trick (I'll have to upload a pic later, though most of you have seen it, I think.) She was shocked and delighted.
We got the right train heading home. Angelo went off to meet someone, so I rode the rest of the way home alone. Of course, this would be the time for me to fall off.
The factors were three-fold: I only had one hand on the handle bars as I was coughing from exhaust fumes, the grate in the sidewalk shifted unexpectedly, and where there should have been a curb it had crumbled away. I also keen on not running into the car right beside me. So down I go. And before I even hit the ground, I'm thinking, "well, this is just great, I'd better not break-OW- anything." Which I find more amusing than panic. And indeed, nothing broke. Though there is an awful welt down my left hip, my elbow is a bit banged up, and my knee somehow got skinned through my jeans on top of the bruise. I was certainly feeling it later on, especially on the stairs. The bike was fine too, though that's probably because it landed on top of me.
Last night, I had a fit on insomnia and decided to just stay up all night. Am I going to do a repeat tonight? Nah. I'm off to bed.

But before I go: Adam Phillips has created some of the most fantastic flash animations I've seen. You may have already seen Taken, a Halloween short meant to scare you silly. Aside from that, he's created an entire world setting, called Brackenwood, which is beautiful and quite fun. I'd also recommend just browsing through his site for the stories and other goodies. Heavy on the bandwidth, but very much worth the time.

Tanjoubi recap

I spent most of Saturday out and about, buying stuff for myself and for others. Back at the dorm, Chin, Baku, Frank, and Elaine sat me down to a drinking party; sake, vodka, and rum and coke all around. I knew I couldn't have too much though, since I had agreed to work a kids' Christmas party for the next day (before I realized that it was the day after my birthday). Wouldn't go too well with a hangover. They wouldn't let me get away with nothing though (such good friends). Frank said I was pretty good at drinking, but he was probably joking. That guy's a tank! But poor Baku turned bright red after only one drink. Later on, Chris, Chris and Adam joined in, then gradually wandered off again after about an hour or two. I finally turned in about 3, though my Chinese friends stayed up for a bit later.
Then it was up at 8. I'll have to save that story for later, since it's time for class again. But yes, my 21st birthday was nice and loud and of the rather drunken sort, as is befitting American tradition.

Best viewed with your eyeballs.

Time for t3h funnies!

The first one here is a commercial for the new XBox that, apparently, never aired. BANG!

The other is... DANCING AROUND THE WORLD! Seriously, this dude is doing his little jig all over the place, from small towns to big cities to the middle of freakin' jungles. There's even a part where he's on top of Kilimanjaro, which is impressive to say the least. But the African dance is best. Run, giraffe, run!

It may take awhile to download, but it's worth its weight in giggles.

Countdown

I turn 21 tomorrow. That's 7x3 years of life. Or 21x1, if you will. Come to think of it, I'm two years away from being prime again. Let's celebrate with this song by They Might be Giants (just a clip for now, sorry).



Perry Bible Fellowship = Love

Confessions of a Key Bender

I couldn't find my bike key this morning, so I had to borrow another bike that hadn't been assigned yet. The lock and key were very different from those of my regular bike, but I was running late so I didn't really notice.
After about 6-7 hours, I went back to the parking area only to discover that my bike had been moved from it's original spot. It didn't have any number on it, but I remembered that it was orange. I looked a few meters over to the left and spotted the only orange bike in the row. I tried my key in it, thinking that it should be the right one, but nay. And the key was apparently so aghast at being used in the improper lock that it bent in protest. It should be noted that the key was very thin, and the metal gave way far too easily.
Which was lucky enough, because I was able to bend it back into a relatively straight line. I then searched another row and found another orange bike, this time the correct one. (And in my defence, it was identical to the one I had just tried.) Terada-san didn't seem to notice anything when I handed it back in, so I may not need to explain anything. I mean, the key still works.
In the right lock.

Favorite Webcomic

BUNNY
A webcomic based in the UK, created as an experiment by the enigmatic artist known as "Lem." I love it for the random and wide-ranging subject matter, as well as the artistic quality. I would recommend to anyone that they read all the comics. Not necessarily from the beginning, but that's a good place to start. I actually started reading it when it first came out, about 5 or so comics into the "experiment," so it's been in my bookmarks list for over a year now.
Sometimes the references are not very clear... at least to those who are not familiar with British humour. There are usually clues (or added jokes) in the titles; if anything else, you can jump into the LiveJournal feed to see what other people have said about it.

Bonus: Lem is also the creator of the infamous "Tea" icon, made after the terrorist bombing of the London transportation system back in July. It is dear to me, but I won't post it unless someone asks for it ;P

(PS: I've enabled comments for anyone now, so you don't need a blogger account to comment. But be forewarned that my ownership of this blog grants me supreme power of moderation and modification. And stuff. -kthxbye-)

Organizational Skills

m'kay, I'm breaking up the stuff from my last post into a more organized format: multiple posts.

Random Music:
(links yoinked from various sites)
The Katamari Damashii theme by Corey Vs. Corey. Punk-ish rock that gives an already addictive videogame tune a more catchy and intense flare. I've found links to it in a few places; you could probably just google it for a free download. And perhaps you've heard of the game itself? Bizarre concept, with an even more bizarre execution. And yet, apparently quite appealing.
Oi to the World by the Vandals - punk metal would be the way to describe this Christmas parody. Can't really understand all the lyrics, but it's still fun to headbang to at the library. (Wearing headphones, of course.)
And now for an abrupt change of pace.
The Derivative Song by Tom Lehrer (copyright 1951). I am such a geek. You can read more about Tom Lehrer and other, similar songs here.

Random Sites

OK, a friend sent me this link, and it was so... well, I'll let the picture tell its thousand-and-one words.


It's not just that I like cats. It's stuff on my cat. The whole concept tickles me.

And for all you computer geeks and gamers out there:
How to Fry an Egg with Your PC
You know you want to. After a long night of rushing, item/noob-hunting, and/or general fragging, you may find yourself getting the midnight munchies. Problem solved.
(*not checked for Mac compatiblity)
(**have not actually tried this myself)
(***in case you were wondering "wtf is Brown Sauce?")

Candy

051205_0935~01.JPG
Originally uploaded by jdcscribbles.

Candy. Yes, it deserves it's own topic.

This is our candy bowl. It's been on our room's kitchen table for the past few days. What's special about this particular bowl is that no one has taken any candy out of it. Nay, in fact, through no spoken coordination between us, we are adding candy to it. We'll see how long this lasts.

Also, I finally got my package from San Antonio (the second one; we've given up the first one for lost). The game is secondary, mainly because it was too late to save my account, but also because the rest of its contents was processed sugar. Sour Skittles and gummyworms to be exact. Rejoice!

I should also note, this is my first pic uploaded via flickr.com; looks like I can use this service as a photo album too. *plots*

A more visually appealing post.

So, while I'm at it, "rabbit, rabbit" and all that. Happy December. (And Happy Birthday, Mom! Figured I should say that early to make up for your gift getting there late.)

I've got some more pictures to post from a field trip for the Seminar class. I went with the early group on Saturday; we visited the cool places, like the shrine with hundreds of stone buddhas and a spot for viewing the surrounding mountains and valleys. Praying manti were everywhere; I'll have to ask Ruby for copies of her pictures, since I was too busy handling them to take any photos of my own. I also found a few gravesites, though I'm not sure it would be kosher to post pictures of them.

We had a small BBQ and spent the night at Nishigoshi. We stayed up really late playing games, but I think everyone eventually got some sleep.

Sunday afternoon we went to a kabuki theatre just to have a tour and walked down to a small museum for those paper hats they make for the festivals. They're so intricate and beautiful; unfortunately my phone was out of juice by then, so no pictures at the moment.




My favorite part of Sunday was the park with the stone pinwheels. The windmills themselves were very cool, but there was also a slide! The first part you had to push yourself along, but towards the end it was so wheeeee!


I've got more pics, but it's a lot of the same thing. I'll have to make some kind of photo page where I can dump them all.

(Blog Assignment?) Reviews of Movies to See

これは見たことがなくて、見たい映画です。
These are movies I haven't seen yet but want to see:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
It's out right now, but I'm not up for crowds atmo. I usually prefer the books anyway. On the other hand, I am looking forward to the special effects.
This is the fourth movie in the series, where Harry is somehow entered into the Tri-wizard Tournament and gets into all sorts of the usual trouble. It's also where the series takes a darker turn, because at the end (this might be a *SPOILER* for some of you, but geez, you should try reading sometime) a character dies.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Another movie based on a book, this movie comes out Dec. 9th. I read the Narnia series as a child, ironically in the order that they were written rather than the more recent order of publication. Since they're starting with the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, it looks like they're making the movies in the same order. That is, if they plan to make the rest of the series.
Basically, these four children end up going into another world through an old wardrobe in their uncle's(?) house. There are satyrs and centaurs, talking animals, and a power-hungry witch who is turning the land into a permanent winter domain. With the guidance of Aslan, a god-like lion, the children fight to wrest Narnia from the witch's grasp.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
This one has been out for quite awhile, but I still haven't seen it. I read most of the 3 books when I was younger, and tried to watch a live action version of it (a movie from the 70's? I don't quite remember). It's a cult classic, really; the start of it involves the Earth being blown up for the construction of some galactic freeway or something to the like. The dolphins (second smartest creatures on the planet after the mice) get the infamous line "so long and thanks for all the fish!" before the take off from the planet. What follows is a series of random adventures of a rather reluctant Arthur Dent and his alien comrades. If anything, you should see it for all the quotes.


Well, I hope I did this assignment right. And hopefully I won't need any more sick days from class.