Absolutely Nothing

So how can a person who literally does nothing all day hope to be respected by the rest of humankind? "Nothing" generally consists of occasionally letting the dog out so he can bark at the neighbor's dog -- because to hell with that whiny chihuahua -- and maybe exerting the necessary force to push the "change-channel" button on the channel-changer. That's really what the last four or five years has been for me; just, you know, watching TV. Eating. Sleeping. More or less. That's what I hope will be on my epitaph: "Ate, Slept, Defecated. A Life in Words."

Ah, but with no particular specials skills that rise above the cream of the crop, how does one stay motivated to keep moving? Knowing that you're an inadequate human being certainly doesn't help one's positive outlook on life, and doing "nothing" cannot be properly displayed on a resume without expecting a raise of the eyebrow and maybe a few laughs from a would-be employer. Nothing is something! Can't you see it? It takes one jerk-of-a-person to say, "Hey, I'm blind, but I'm going to climb this 29,000+ foot mountain anyway just because, yeah, you know, no biggie," and another person to say, "I'm alive and I was given the tools necessary to make a difference in the world, but to hell with it, I'm gonna do jack shit. Ooh, look, reruns of Seinfeld!" That...that is tenacity: though the world expects it all from you, "nothing" is on the top of your to-do list. It's supremely difficult! I have first hand experience!

Tom Hanks' fictional character -- who will be unfortunately referenced here -- was once marooned on a island with just a volleyball, a productly-placed Fed-Ex package, and his sanity. He started talking to the volleyball and he didn't open the potentially life-saving package, but despite these two acts of lunacy, his sanity still existed within the confines of his newly-Robinson-Crusoe-christened heart. However, he lost it once he wanted to get back to civilization. See, a lot of what someone does (I'm assuming) alone on a deserted island is absolutely nothing. You do what you need to survive (harpoon the fish, break some coconuts, conduct oral surgery with an ice-skate, etc.) but even then...you end up doing a whole lot of nothing. It breaks a man. Accomplishing something is easy. You just tell yourself, "I'm going to [for lack of a better [and non-repetitious] example] climb a mountain today! Okey-dokey, here I go!" At the end of the day, you feel good about yourself -- you've gotten your exercise, you've gotten your scenic vista, and you've done something that only a chosen few [read: possible thousands] will get the privilege to do.

Doing the exact opposite and still feeling good about yourself? It's rough. It's like grabbing your metaphorical soul and violently rubbing it against a rusted cheese-grater. Tom Hanks' character couldn't mentally handle wasting away doing nothing with his life, so he broke. He went back to civilization to pursue "accomplishments" and "dreams".

What a pussy.

Random Dreams: Part Five

We were out on the Florida Marlins' baseball field, which, for some reason, was really on the beach. Home plate was the shallowest of the positions on the field, but near-everything else was out in the ocean, with the poor center-fielder being the deepest of all. I was the third base ball boy, and I kept missing every foul that would roll in my direction. Finally, upset by this, one of the umpires decided to start throwing me pop-flies. The crowd -- consisting of a bunch of 300-pound fat people -- shouted in anger when I could not catch a single one of them. Who could blame me? I was technically treading water while trying to catch baseballs.

The inning was over, and I trudged into the dugout, which also happened to be a seafood restaurant. Unfortunately, at that time, the tide came in, along with a bunch of sword fish with saws for noses and sharks with fish hooks for teeth. Course, they started biting us. Clutching high onto a nearby chain-link fence, I looked down at the water below me and saw them ferociously hunting for a shred of savory Florida human leg meat. I could have sworn a morbidly obese woman was grabbed and taken into the depths of the ocean (or baseball field, in this case). The tide eventually subsided, and I sullenly walked into the dugout/restaurant.


However, as with most weird dreams, I was almost crushed by a woman who was not 300-pounds, but closer to a thousand. I could clearly see the glistening ripples in her magnificent fat rolls jiggle as she came rolling towards me. Helpless -- powerless -- I tried my best to run, but this woman was more or less taking up every square inch of the place. Like a steamroller traveling at about three miles an hour, she undulated towards me until finally, my feet moved and I ran the hell out of there.

Another obese woman screamed -- not because I was almost crushed to death, but because the second-baseman was being scooped up whole into the mouth of a great white shark. That's when the phone rang in real life.

Like Running Errands in Animal Crossing

One of the most satisfying aspects about playing a game in the Fire Emblem series is the ability to watch a terribly weak, low-stat character grow into something of an unstoppable tank. Granted, depending on said character, this could be easier said than done -- some units, by design, weren't entirely meant to be an all-around great warrior. Sometimes you just end up with someone like Meg.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, being a remake of the very first game in the series, has that character-building, cocaine-like addiction. Chances are, you'll find a character that looks particularly cool, and you'll say, "All right, Barst, I'm going to give you this hand-axe and this regular iron axe, and we're gonna tear through hundreds of enemy soldiers without a sweat." Once or twice, Barst will get struck down by an unlucky critical hit thanks in part to a agile sword-user. You'll curse, soft-reset the game, and remember to not send Barst anywhere near that enemy again. The blue-haired unit you'll have by the end of the game will statistically look much different than single-digit rookie at the beginning. Whether or not the designers feel the same way, Fire Emblem has always been about growth and mostly forward momentum, both systematically and thematically.

If you happened to play the ninth Fire Emblem game, Path of Radiance, first, you'll more than likely won't be able to enjoy the remake on the DS quite as much as you would, say, Radiant Dawn. Shadow Dragon feels extremely bare-bones. Many of the recruitable characters have maybe a few lines of dialogue, and then disappear into the ranks of your army and are never used or seen again. And those passive abilities -- as seen in the better entries of the series -- that are able to make your characters into hulking behemoths of destruction? They're...not here in Shadow Dragon. Supports, too, are non-existent.

Remember that this is a remake of the very-first Fire Emblem; the series has definitely grown and flourished with improvements over the years, despite still having the same basic formula. Still, Shadow Dragon's overall design just doesn't really hold up -- one, a majority of the maps are giant, sprawling landscapes, with maybe a tree or a bridge here and there. While "giant sprawling landscapes" is easily something a publishing company could use as a positive bullet-point, it doesn't work here, since the open areas really leave no room for any intricate strategy. A line of cavaliers could race their way toward your party, and the only real way to deal with them is to form a wall of characters yourself or send one of your over-leveled units out into the front guard. If you send a two-man party out to confront the enemy, chances are they'll swarm one of your characters and stab him or her to death. Since you're fighting on wide-open landscapes, you really don't have much of a choice in regards to character placement.

Every Fire Emblem's main protagonist (or "Lord"), begins the game, much like every other character, as a vulnerable marshmallow. Marth, in this instance, is no different. The problem here doesn't lay with the fact that he'll get handily crushed early on, but instead lays with how he's the only person with any diplomatic skills. See, as a player, you'll want to use Marth. He's one of the better characters in the game! But most of the time, you'll have him running errands by visiting villages and capturing castles -- not fighting enemies and not gaining experience. No other character can visit a village, talk to the locals, and thus grab a few rare items. Here's a general scenario: you'll have your main fighting force on one side of the map; meanwhile, Marth with be on the polar opposite, collecting maybe a red gem and definitely little experience. Next minute, you'll have taken out the enemy general (usually a bulky bastard with a Killer Axe), and Marth will take another three turns to rush from that village to finally conquer and clear the map. The "constantly-pushing-forward" flow found in other Fire Emblem games is somewhat missing here.

Yes, forward momentum -- usually, as the underdog country, this series has your army pushing through hordes of enemies into order to reach a specific spot on a map (such as a castle). The designers sometimes switch the objectives up a bit by creating a different scenario where you're maybe defending your home base (as seen in Path of Radiance) or simply task you with a "defeat-100-enemies-before-all-hell-breaks-loose" objective (in Radiant Dawn). These missions generally stand out; not only do they mix up the tedium for something different, but they also have some sort of meaty gravitas behind them story-wise. When you're not trying to accomplish a different objective, you're conquering waves of troops -- you're moving forward, getting closer to that long-sought goal. Nearly every mission in Shadow Dragon is similar to this as well -- which is fine for the most part -- but there exists a certain amount of tedium here, probably because Marth is quite often playing errand boy. You're not moving forward. Instead, you're traipsing through another day of Animal Crossing.

Intelligent Systems, the minds behind the Fire Emblem series, is now working on a remake of the sequel to Shadow Dragon, and it largely looks the same. Whether or not the game will follow in the footsteps of the blandness set by its predecessor remains to be seen, but hopefully it won't be afraid to mix things up a bit.

Random Dreams: Part Four

I don't know why, but I've been dreaming a lot lately. I'm guessing it's because I'm getting too much REM sleep, due to the fact that whenever the alarm erupts into a fit of unwanted noise, I just end up hitting the snooze button. Right now, sleeping a little later is something I'm allowed to do! Other times, say, when I have an actual job, I won't be given the pleasure of such weird dreams.

Anyway! This morning I rode through some wet cement on my bike, but it wasn't entirely on purpose. I just didn't see it before I rode through it, that's all! Unfortunately, the Mexican dude there that had just laid the cement dashed over to berate me -- he didn't speak a word of English, though, so he had his young son translate for him. Why this kid wasn't in school was beyond me, but here he was, translating angry words in my general direction. I apologized, and the issue was quickly resolved.

A couple days ago, in reality, I had watched Pineapple Express, a movie you can tell was made just because the producers wanted to make it, which is nice in an industry where money rules the place. Sadly, the film isn't actually any good. Never mind the critique -- the point is, Amber Heard played the protagonist's girlfriend in Pineapple Express, so, of course, she also happened to appear in my dream. Nothing naughty went down, mind you! We just ended up playing a game of tag.

Then her mom showed up and told Amber she had to go home. Sigh.
Bye, Amber. Don't know why you were in a bikini, but I guess that's just how things are 'round here.

Random Dreams: Part Three

When I awoke this morning, I remember that I had dreamt the ground opening up and spitting giant, flaming boulders upon the surface of the earth. These boulders were the size of buildings; I could gauge the size because these fiery colossi demolished a few when they first began erupting from the earth. Of course, I ran at full speed away from them, and, of course, since I am able to tell the whole story of the dream, I was able to get away.
The strange aspect about the boulders is that they just didn't roll around like normal rocks effected by normal laws of physics, no -- they seemed to be controlled by a will of their own, and if they spotted any person or building in the vicinity of their "eyesight", they rolled in that specific direction. Luckily, I was the protagonist of my own dream. As such, protagonists do not die, much less get crushed by gigantic, flaming boulders.

A little later in the dream, I escaped from downtown and hijacked, of all vehicles, a Hummer. Thing is, I couldn't drive it out of the parking lot, the thing was so big. So, I ended up attempting to climb this steep incline, and thus the Hummer rolled onto its top.

That's when I woke up.

This Isn't About The Hangover, But Here's a Picture of the Movie Anyway to Make This Post More Readable

I was at Target last night, trying to find a fucking copy of The Hangover, which, by the way, is not a movie worth the effort of scouring an entire valley to find. The great thing (note: sarcasm) about living in a small valley is that many stores don't receive as many shipments as they would, say, in the city -- as such, you've got to put a little more "oomph" into your search than normal. We don't even have any normal movie-rental places. So, you're Indiana Jones, and you're traversing deadly, icy streets and dodging oncoming deer to finally discover a copy of a sacred film where four dudes get in some deep shit in Vegas.

But surprisingly, this worthless block of words isn't about The Hangover, no sir; instead, it's going to be a short analysis of how my mind functions in an otherwise normal situation. Here's the dealio: we're at Target, we've gotten our Sacred Cow of a Movie, and we're standing in line. Pretty normal. To point out that, hey, I'm pretty broke and I really shouldn't be buying anything, let alone a movie I probably am not going to like all that much, I make this comment about how I'm from Aspen and can afford every little item that may come into contact with my well-manicured fingertips. I try to say this with a posh-British accent, hoping to get some sort of reaction.

I get a reaction, but not the one I was expecting.

"Well, aren't you pretty snobby."

This comes from the cashier, who's currently checking out the people in front of us. I turn, looking deep into her eyes, trying to figure out whether she's serious or not. Oh, she's pretty fucking serious, you can tell by the look on her face. My friend, fortunately, says, "Oh, he's not really from Aspen."

No response from Miss Priss.

I'm pretty dumbfounded at this point, because a) who takes anything seriously these days when you've got the fucking Terminator in office and b) I could set fire to a pile of fresh dog shit in the middle of the store and nobody would notice, I'm that inconspicuous. Anything I say is dust in the wind.

Long story short, the cashier has someone take over for her before she can ring us up, she walks away, and we leave.

It's not that great of a story, really, especially not one to write about. Thing is, I wasn't really angry that this person whom I had never met was calling me out on something that actually wasn't true, no -- I felt guilty because my performance wasn't up to snuff. Normally, you can tell when I'm being sarcastic, but here was this person who did not know that some dumb comment I made was actually, truly falsified. I am not from Aspen! I do not have a Bently sitting in my garage! I don't speak in a posh-British accent! I don't need a monocle to see clearly through my left eye!

More than anything, I wanted to apologize to her because I hadn't given her my best. Otherwise, she would have been in hysterics about how funny the entire I-have-no-money-yet-I'm-buying-this-completely-overrated-movie situation was. It's pretty funny! It's not, but still. Why so serious?

P.S. -- I Wuv You, Target! Thank you for relieving me of such undignified greenery!

Gee-tar Siren Song

What exactly is the appeal of being able to play a guitar, anyway?

You get women. And...that's about it.

As I see it, the guitar not only seems like a tool to create music, but also the male version of a siren call to woo the fairer sex.

Way back when, I tried to play the guitar. I thought it would make me cooler -- that I would be able to enter the annual high school talent show and have all the girls hoot and holler and whistle as I strummed the chords required to play whatever song I scientifically decided would earn me the most, how you say, feminine street cred. Even if I wasn't handsome, even if I had a rotten personality, even if I consistently shot loogies from my mouth whenever I spoke; if I was able to play the guitar, none of that would have mattered. I would be a god. An ugly, disgusting, unlikeable, musical god. But the women would love me.

All right, so maybe that's a little exaggerated. Still, there's no denying that the guitar has some societal power here in the world. You can't say something to that effect of the french horn, for example.

Before I was physically and mentally conscious of myself, my instrument of choice was, of all things, the flute. I had probably chosen it because I was actually able to get some sound out of the damned thing. Thinking back on middle school band class now, it's strange how my classmates' chosen instruments perfectly complimented their categorical personality. All the loud people played the trumpets, the stoners and underachievers banged the drums, the shallow valley girls tooted and squeaked their clarinets, the tall people played the tubas, the didn't-quite-fit-in-a-specific-category people played the trombones, and the frickin' dainty-ass wafers were on the flutes. I was quiet and shy; thus, I played the flute.

I remember a call my band teacher made to my parents before I had made the flute my permanent instrument of choice: he wanted to make sure that it was all right if I, a certified teenage dude, played such a homosexual instrument.

"Why the hell not?" I think was my response at the time. "I can get sound out of it, so I'd like to play it."

Some years later, I quit. I wasn't getting any better, and most of the material we were playing just didn't interest me anymore. I was tired of music -- at least, tired of playing music. So, despite all of that, I decided to pick up the guitar instead, though not because I thought I would enjoy it, but because it would get me somewhere. Playing the guitar meant I was moving up in the world. All I needed to know was the three chords required to play Hey Jude, and my course for success was set. Money would start rolling in by the millions, I would have to hire a couple bodyguards to help stave off the tons upon tons of women from lovingly suffocating me, and best of all, I would be happy just knowing that it took little to no skill to get on that gleaming, shiny pedestal of Gee-tar Awesome.

Okay, so I don't really think like that, but it still stumps me as to why the guitar is such a nationally-lauded instrument. I've boiled it down to a couple reasons:

1) The Rock-Star Lifestyle

Seriously, if you're a rock-star, you're a god. Being able to shred some sort of quick melody, your fingers jumping up and down the frets, is more heroically viable than conducting heart surgery on a dying patient. Add in some head-banging and long hair, and to the guitar-loving world, you can do no wrong. You could insult somebody's mom and get away with it -- that's how loved you are. I guess the rock-star lifestyle isn't what it used to be, though, but that's probably because now anyone can get in on a taste of the action. How, you ask? Well:

2) It's Because of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Bra!

A lot of musicians have been complaining in the past couple years about the fictional reality that these artificial music games create for the millions upon millions of dorm-room kids who have played them. These musicians claim that pressing buttons on a plastic guitar does not, in any way, compare to actually strumming a bona fide guitar -- instead, these dorm room kids should get out and actually pick up a piece of the real action. While these sentiments are entirely true -- bragging about how you can conquer some Dragonforce riff in Guitar Hero is kind of sad, really, when you think about whether or not you could actually play the song on something not made entirely of plastic -- I think the main problem musicians have with these games is that they give everybody a glimpse of what only a select few musicians could hope to experience. It's like finally joining an exclusive club where you're able to eat genuine crab and lobster all day, gorging in some succulent deliciousness; then you find out that they make fake crab and lobster and sell them at the local supermarket, a place where the Average Joe goes. Oh, and the fake stuff tastes just as good.

3) The Guitar Has Nothing to do with the Mouth

If you've played some sort of instrument that requires a certain amount of lung capacity, then you certainly know about the amount of saliva that accumulates every time you blow into the thing. Spit valves, for example, are kind of nasty. And so is the human mouth, a place where bad breath could run rampant, or where teeth could be the most delicious shade of yellow. Or brown, even! So all the women out there will be delighted to know that the guitar has nothing to do with that orifice. They can rest easy. That's why all of the most "romantic" instruments (I'm thinking Lady and the Tramp here, with the accordion), don't need any wind power to use. The same goes for the guitar, which is the number-one pick for people who want to get women, but don't want to look like a nerd plucking the violin or bash their social lives against the wall solely by playing the accordion.

(I like the accordion, though! It's just, most people don't.)

And that's the success story of the guitar. I can appreciate those small number of people that can actually play it, and play it well, but for everyone else, I don't want to hear you strangling a dead cat. I know you're trying to get ahead in life. Believe me, I've been there. But you just sound...terrible. Put your time instead to becoming a doctor or a veterinarian. Animals need saving, too, and the ladies will love you for it.

Vicinity of Obscenity

2010 is going to be an interesting year, I can already tell. It began with the usual fireworks show up in Aspen, Colorado, which was pretty usual as far as usual fireworks shows go. There was this guy being hauled from a nearby outhouse into a cop car, which we all assumed was due to some Indecent Exposure; because, dude, it was wickedly cold out and shrinkage is embarrassing and should be lawfully punished if revealed to the public. We all know the effects of shrinkage -- relationship breakups, crying children, and yes, the extreme plummeting of self-esteem. Knowing this country and its laws, the poor bastard in the cop car probably is gonna get five, maybe ten years.

It was cold out. He should have known better.

Once Aspen became boring (which was pretty quickly), we went back home and decided to scream obscenities at the local deer crossing the road. These deer...they think they can just walk out in front of an oncoming vehicle and hope to get away with it! I mean, it's almost like those pedestrians who decide to take their sweet everloving time crossing the road when I'm obviously in a hurry -- you can tell by the loud revving of the engine and the easily-visible vein in my forehead. So, just like these pedestrians, these deer get the old obscenities treatment.

Thing is, this isn't any old obscenities treatment. No, ours is special.

FECKIN A.

That's what it is. Not exactly your standard "Fuckin' A", no. "Feckin A" is a verb and a noun all at once. It's technically not quite an obscenity, yet it sounds close enough to be mistaken as one.

How did it originate, you ask? You didn't ask? Well, Feckin A, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

His name was Kurt. He worked at the local pizza joint. He was in my journalism class back in high school, and as his editor, I told him that his article needed a complete overhaul. Kurt didn't take too kindly to that. A year later, once I had graduated, Kurt and I reminisced about that specific journalism class, and Kurt, in all his brilliance, coined the phrase "Feckin A".

It appears to be two words, but actually only consists of a single word. Really, you kind of pronounce it, "F-eh-kin-uh". Pretend you're a stoner. Pretend you've just gone to the dentist and just gotten your entire mouth numbed up. Now say "Fuckin' A".

Yeah. That's it. You've got it. It's absolute genius.

I salute you, Kurt.

Oh yeah, that's right -- 2010. I have a feeling it's going to be a good year.

Resident Evil: The Remake

Resident Evil, initially, was all about the scares. When mentioning the game, every publication seems to talk about the infamous "dogs jumping through the window" scene -- which is all well and good because the monster-closet scares are what helped to make the game so popular. After you've beaten the game, though, you essentially know what's going to happen in each room, and those frights no longer exist. Instead, those dogs become minor annoyances; hindrances to your progression.

Yet, people still love the old-style Resident Evil, even as we have already entered this age of fantastical boulder-punching. Running through static-camera rooms is still as fun as it was way back in 1996, or even, say, in 2002 when the game was remade for the Gamecube.

And that's because, despite what people will tell you, Resident Evil always has been a strategy game.

Maybe that sounds absurd. Maybe it doesn't! In any case, trying to get from Point A to Point B with a limited inventory and little ammo, knowing what items to leave and what to pick up, and avoiding certain monster-filled hallways because you didn't waste said precious ammo on those couple zombies gives your brain a specific workout that most action games can't even come close to. Granted, the brain power required to manage an inventory is much, much smaller than figuring out a difficult math problem, but there definitely is a level of strategy in Resident Evil that you don't get out of many games nowadays, much less recent entries in the series.

I've played the remake a couple times now, and it still hasn't gotten old. Maybe this is because, much like the Metroid series, the game rewards you for getting through the mansion (and later, the laboratory) as quickly as possible. If you beat the game under three hours, the game gives you a rocket launcher, which -- again, much like Metroid's reward of bikini Samus -- is somewhat superficial. But there's something incredibly satisfying about beating a game under a certain amount of time, and the rocket launcher allows you to do this even faster.

I can't write about the game without mentioning how it looks. With all the topics of conversation about graphical fidelity on high-definition TV sets today, it's still pretty amazing that the remake still looks unbelievable. The character models aren't anything fancy in comparison to many of the current games, but they still are detailed and well-animated. No, what shines here are all the environments -- everything, from the mansion to the surrounding forest to the dank laboratory, looks amazingly realistic and gorgeous. Wind blows through the grass and trees on the path leading up to the old cabin on the edge of the woods. Water shimmers in the moonlight of the old swimming pool, even showing your character's reflection in the small ripples. Much of this game is about atmosphere, and Resident Evil really sucks you in to the whole experience.

And as much as I love Resident Evil 4, it doesn't really capture that Resident Evil "feel". Then again, I don't think it ever was trying to, but I certainly do miss the fact that we probably won't ever get another game where you know that slowly opening that next door might just spell your ultimate demise. I certainly didn't feel terrified in Resident Evil 5, and the light-gun games of the Chronicles series don't provide any of that inventory-management of yesteryear, so I guess I should just appreciate the experience that those games provide.

Still, nothing beats the feeling you get knowing that you made it to the end, conserved all your magnum bullets, and then shot the crap out of Tyrant, watching him explode into a million tiny pieces. He certainly had it coming.

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 4

The gods were gunning for him, and by "him", I mean the friend of a friend.

He had taken it upon himself to follow in the immortal steps of Kratos and punish the gods himself, inescapable brutality and all. To curse such a delicious drink was a crime against humanity. The gods needed to pay.

And not in dollars, my friend.

In blood.

However, the beings upon Mount Olympus were very much aware of his intentions and were tracking his every move. Kratos, the once-powerful warrior and God of War, had tried and failed this dangerous mission before, sent to the depths of Hades for all eternity to burn for his disobedience -- but apparently, Ol' Whitey had mustered enough mental power to send a motivational message to Mankind. Now, humanity's fate was in its own hands.

The friend of a friend was struggling through thickets in the misty forest, slowly making his way toward Mount Olympus, broadsword strapped to his back. No jet or airplane could penetrate the forcefield around the mystical mountain, unfortunately; no, the only epic way was on foot, and as such, an adventure could occur so as people could write stories about it. (It would be boring if someone could just fly up to their destination, in other words.) Also, he had a broadsword on his back. Either this meant he was deadly serious about his intentions, or he was compensating for something.

Slowly, very slowly, the friend of a friend was delving deeper into the forest -- so deep, in fact, that he equipped his massive, phallic weapon and began to hack away at all the vegetation and greenery that dared to stand in his way. Pine needles SWOOSHED! Vines went WAHPPAH! Canadian maple leaves went HUZZAH and were soon shredded to pieces.

"What kind of sorcery is this," he wondered, "where all the greenery in the world gathers in droves to impede my progress?"

He didn't have much time to ponder after that, for the pine needles and vines and Canadian maple leaves were upon him again, this time in a swarm that was thicker and fuller and even more deadly. A shrill scream escaped from the poor man's mouth as he tried to combat the furious vegetation, hacking and slashing as quickly as he could. But the maple leaves blinded him, and the pine needles pierced his skin, and the vines were wrapping themselves around both his body and his gigantic, pulsating broadsword. With his last breath, the friend of a friend was only able to manage one final phrase:

"What would Kratos do?"

He then promptly laid down and died.

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 3

"WHAT WOULD KRATOS DO?"

Those were the words that had emerged from the mouth of the friend of my friend while he was stricken with the horrible Stone of the Kidneys disease. Thoughts of Kratos had burst into his head, and thus, the pestilence was eradicated from his body. That's all it took; for the legendary Kratos had slaughtered hundreds upon thousands of harpies, minotaurs, and hydras -- how could something so weak as a couple of stones formed by swallowing the delicious beverage of soda compare to these foul beasts of yore?

They couldn't. And now people were becoming healthy, imbued with an extraordinary strength brought on by the thoughts of Kratos.

"W-what shall we do now?" worried the gods. Kratos had defied them before, and now that he had taken the side of the humans, it seemed as if there was nothing to do to counter mankind's sudden wellness.

"We're powerless!" they wailed.

"We're doomed!" they cried.

"This Mountain Dew: Code Red stuff turns my stools into bright red lozenges of fecal matter!" yelped a lowly god who had, out of sheer curiosity, tasted said delicious human beverage.

Suddenly, Zeus emerged, lightning bolt in hand. His face was calm, though tiny beads of sweat were evident upon his forehead.

"Fear not!" he uttered. "I have an answer to our dilemma..."

Wide eyed, the gods all at once realized their folly. They knew what he spoke of.

"Falbi..." they whispered in unison.
Falbi was different from Kratos in the sense that he ran a chicken-flying mini-game on the cliffs of Lake Hylia; he had never, I am told, torn the wings from a harpy or stabbed a minotaur in the throat. No, Falbi was just a simple, flamboyant, extremely well-dressed man who managed a successful business that may or may not have given customers the chance to earn a piece of heart or an orange 100-rupee prize.

So why did the gods fear him? Why did they utter his name with such reverence?

It was Falbi's enchanting, melodic voice!

That voice ("Hiiiiii!") had the ability to waft through the heavens and mend any complex argument that people might have against the gods. Mankind could be angry at the beings on Mount Olympus for causing a gigantic tornado to pick up and toss all their cows, easily mincing the poor animals into hamburger stew -- but with one word from Falbi, these once-furious people would just shrug and say, "Yeah, maybe all that hamburger would have clogged my arteries. Thanks Falbi!"

Hades, Falbi could even convince a grown man to grab a chicken, hang on for dear life, and jump from a cliff into the shivering waters of the lake below. Chickens don't actually fly, mind you. And they don't support a human's body weight. But such was the power of Falbi!

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 2

"And so it was..."

No, no it wasn't. Not exactly.

This friend of a friend of mine would not give in to the pain so easily. His insides on fire, he thought that he would just succumb to the torture, that the easiest way out of this excruciating dilemma would be to simply lay down and die.

"No, you're right, Kratos," he muttered. "This can't be the way it ends...no one should die this way. I'm not going to die this way."

Arms shaking, legs quaking, kidney stones rumbling, he vaulted from his hospital bed, shouted to the gods above, "WHAT WOULD KRATOS DO?", and emerged from that villainous room unscathed. The doctors and nurses couldn't explain what had just occurred before their very eyes; a mere boy -- nay! A MAN! -- had just survived the worst of curses that those blasphemous beings from Mount Olympus could have conjured up from the depths of Hades and placed upon the finest beverages of mankind.

How had he done it? Was it some sort of witchcraft? Some kind of Harry Potter voodoo?

"Nay, doctors and nurses! Be not startled! For Kratos, enemy of the gods and friend to Man, came to me in a feverish dream and told me not to worry. He gave me the strength to survive, and will, too, soon give strength to those stricken by these wicked kidney stones! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" the medical staff echoed. The entire hospital erupted into a melodious harmony of cheers. Up on Mount Olympus, the gods heard these sounds of joy and happiness, and their bushy brows furrowed.

"What is going on?" they pondered, readjusting their La-Z-Boy recliners to get a better view of what was happening down below. "Didn't we make these 'sodas' undrinkable? Aren't humans stricken with the horrible Stones of the Kidney? Why are these shouts down yonder so joyous?"

The friend of a friend of mine heard the gods' query and let out a bloodthirsty scream.

And the beings upon Mount Olympus recoiled in terror, for they knew that this could only mean one thing:

The gods were going down.

Edit: a video appears!

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 1

A friend of a friend of mine was in the hospital some time ago for a problem that might have been related to drinking too much soda, but let's just say it was caused by the gods on Mount Olympus. These ferocious gods had been angry for the longest time! For they had created the fine beverage of water, and blessed the entire world with its presence. One day, however, the gods realized that there may have been too much water for all the world's beings, so they cursed the oceans by contaminating them with the most deadliest of devilry: salt. Oh, were the humans pissed!

"Curse you!" they shouted to the gods, who were relaxed on their La-Z-Boy recliners up on Mount Olympus. "We must drink from these oceans, and now you have contaminated them? Curse you!"

So these humans created a beverage of their own, one that would rival water and put it out of commission in supermarkets across the world. The beverage was called "soda". And most of the world's inhabitants shrieked with joy and frolicked among the flowers and bunnies and fireflies, Diet Dr. Pepper's in hand. This was the beginning of World Peace.

That is, until one fateful day, the gods caught wind of these "Diet Dr. Peppers" and these "Mountain Dew: Code Reds" and decided that they must put a curse on these as well, for humans should not be able to make a beverage as delicious as something the gods could concoct.

"Have some kidney stones, pitiful humans!" they shouted with a chuckle. "Consume too much of your delicious drink and may you have the best of times trying to urinate! Har har!"

And so it was.

Edit: And in consideration for the blind, a narrated version:

A Non-Winner

Note: I wrote this for a 1up contest that asked users to explain what they liked best about the game, No More Heroes. I didn't win! But even so, the contest got me writing again, something that I haven't done in a long time. This is good! So, here I am, hopefully about to consistently write here for the months to come. About what, I don't know! Get excited, though, whoever might read this!

If nothing else, No More Heroes has unwavering pizazz, a flashy word that can only exist in the English language if italicized and preceded by an out-of-place adjective. And that maniacal pizazz is usually what people mention first when they talk about the game: the blood, the beam sabers, the wrestling moves, the ridiculous characters, the story -- No More Heroes is essentially a Tarantino flick in game-form without most of the film homages that anybody who isn't a film geek will give a shit about (Wilhelm scream? Who the fuck cares? Okay, I care a little...). Sanctimonious pizazz is good and all, but it only goes so far in the argument of style versus substance.

No, what's best about No More Heroes is how amazingly self-aware it is. Right from the start, it plays as a videogame and then remains a videogame throughout the course of Travis' blood-soaked journey. No matter what the situation, whether you're slicing through spleens or shooting aliens Galaga-style in that out-of-nowhere minigame, No More Heroes revels in its self-consciousness and fourth-wall humor. A couple noteworthy examples of some fourth-wall-breakers: Travis mentions the person "holding the remote out there" in the introductory cutscene, Sylvia's less-than-optimistic phonecalls play through the Wii remote's speaker (welcoming you to the "Garden of Madness"), and without giving too much away, a certain character speeds up their dialogue just to avoid a nastier ESRB rating. Really, when you boil it right down, No More Heroes is a game for people who like games, much like Tarantino movies are generally for people who like movies.

While we're being honest here, yes, No More Heroes is a little uneven, and yes, the overworld may or may not have been intended to be a satire on open-world games, but goddamn it -- if No More Heroes didn't have all the right pieces in exactly the right place, then it more than makes up for it in sheer love of the medium. And in an industry where remembering your roots is slowly becoming the hip, cool thing to do, No More Heroes is undeniably a game worthy of a place on the hip, cool pedestal of unrelentless pizazz.

The Seafood Burrito

There's something terrifyingly uncomfortable about seeing a bunch of white people in a Mexican restaurant, you know? Most of what makes the Mexican restaurant experience is the atmosphere, with the music, the adobe architecture, and most importantly, the authentic Mexican people rounding out the whole package. When you can't even hear the mustachioed guy in the speakers singing about his long-lost love because a large group of obese, middle-aged white people keeping cackling and chewing away at their food, something is wrong with the world.

Our waiter called us "amigos". I don't know why he did. He didn't look like he wanted to be there working, so I doubt serving us food made us welcoming and friendly to him. Still, if I had any friends, I would probably call them "amigos" with an affected accent, but the only friend I have is a pet cat named Amigo. I just renamed her that. I hope she's okay with it.

I had a seafood burrito, though.

The Grandfather Paradox

I once met my future self in the auditorium of my old high school, a high school that wasn't old at the time because there was still asbestos in the walls and the authorities hadn't yet realized that it was slowly killing us all. Two of my female classmates and I were rehearsing for an upcoming play -- and for the sake of privacy, let's name these girls "Judy" and, the other, oh, I don't know, "Megan O'Flannegan" (how's that for specificity?). After we were finished for the day, Megan, who I may or may not have been unhealthily obsessed with at the time, came up to me looking for some sort of consolation for a problem that had been pestering her:

"You know, sometimes I just can't stand Judy."

"Really?" I inquired with an incredibly handsome smirk. "Why not? She seems fine to me."

"Well," said Megan, who had had more theater and acting experience than Judy and I combined, "she started giving me pointers today about what I could do better. It's like she thinks she knows more about acting than I do."

"That's ridiculous. She probably was just...insecure about her own abilities, so she criticized yours."

That's probably what I should have said. As a complete jackass who then viewed the world as an axe murderer who was out to get me at every whim, I thought that Megan's complaints were childish and immature. She was probably talking to me just for the sake of talking to me, seeing as I was an attractive and lovable guy who was absolutely impossible to resist (but apparently not too impossible, as we will soon see).

Instead, I replied, "Know what, Megan? Just deal with it."

Megan looked at me with disgust.

"'Know what'?" she mocked. "You're an asshole." She stormed off.

Looking back on it, she was wrong about me; I was a jackass, not an asshole. Either way, I had pissed off a girl who I had liked above all other girls in a high school appropriately deemed "The Hot Girl Academy," which only accepted the hottest of the hotties. Oh, and I attended it, too, for some reason. Don't ask how or why. It just pays to know people, that's all.

In any case, I stood alone in that auditorium, feeling both dejected and rejected. But this story isn't about how I had lost the girl of my dreams -- it's about how I lost the girl of my dreams to science. For at that moment, a bright light appeared on stage, and from that bright light appeared...me. I hadn't aged a day.

"Howdy, there, old self," he said.

My jaw dropped. "What the hell? Who...what are you?"

He smiled. "Isn't it obvious? I'm from the future, delivered unto the heavens from my very own homemade time machine, here to correct the sins of my past. I'm you."

"Really, huh?" I accepted this strange twist of fate rather quickly. "You look good."

"Thanks. Eat your vegetables. Drink your milk. Yadda yadda." My future self cleared his throat. "Anyway, delightfully pleasant conversation is not why I'm here, I'm sorry to say. I'm here to correct the si--"

"...'sins of my past'. Yeah, I got it." I was incredulous. "What sins? I haven't committed any sins, uh, per se..."

Now my future self looked incredulous. "You don't consider that a sin, what you just did? You let the goddamn girl of your dreams slip away like that, and you don't consider that a sin?"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

"You're damn right it's a sin! Just because you're all angsty now does not give you the right to bash your future's hopes and dreams against a friggin' brick wall!"

I scoffed. "I haven't bashed anything! You -- I mean 'I' -- built a time machine! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"No, it's definitely a colossal human achievement; I will admit that. But I slaved hours and hours to build it, and in the process, denied the hundreds upon thousands of gorgeous women knocking at my doorstep just to get here. To get to this one moment."

"Are you serious?" I asked, again incredulous. "Out of all the events in history, out of all the tragedies you could have averted, out of all the wrongs you could have righted, you chose this moment in time...just to tell me to stop being such a jackass?"

"Well, basically."

I stared in amazement. "You know, now that I think about it, I do recall something I learned from the HGA's science class about time travel, something I wouldn't have ever thought about had you not shown up. Or did you forget about that seemingly crucial piece of information, too, even while making your time machine?"

"Like what?"

"Well," I announced, "there's this little thing called the 'Grandfather Paradox'..."

My future self's eyes became headlights.

"Oh, shit..." Realization had hit him in the face, apparently. I continued.

"You remember, now, don't you? You know, the theory that states that if a person were to go back in time and kill his or her grandfather, then the grandchild, AKA the killer, would have never been conceived at all? Come on, man! Have you never seen Back to the Future? ...Well, obviously you have because I have..."

"No, I see where you're going with this."

"Right. This means that by coming back here to warn me about a dumb verbal mistake I had made with Megan, it will seemingly convert one 'bleak' future path to another future path filled with a lifetime of happiness with her, right? But you wouldn't even be here had that happened. What I'm saying is, nothing will come of your time-traveling actions. You being here means I'm still going to go down a lonely, yet extremely technological-savvy road no matter what you do!"

Defeated, my future self admitted, "You know what? You're absolutely right. Huh. Well, that sucks. No use crying over spilt milk, right?"

"Er...not exactly."

It looked like my future self was physically trying to hold back the tears. He probably was about to say something profound, but all he could muster was, "See you later...asshole."

"Jackass."

And with that, he disappeared into the light and, contrary to his farewell, was never to be seen again. Well, except a few months later when I checked my face in the reflection of the time machine I was building.

Dragon Quest IV: The Only Game I Actually Enjoyed Last Year

Yes. It's true. Well, sorta.

Dragon Quest IV, in terms of pacing and set-up, is really the exact opposite of Mother 3, a game that it obviously inspired. Whereas the former's beginning is mind-numbingly slow in order to delve into the respective character backgrounds, the latter begins with tragic events, an Indiana Jones-type excavation for a magical egg, and a fun little romp as a monkey. Honestly, it took me about ten grueling hours to get past Dragon Quest IV's opening chapters, but once the game explores the story of the actual hero, the rollercoaster ride takes off without a hitch.

Mother 3...personally, not so much.

No other game last year had me coming back, night after night, making me crave to see the story through to the end. Yes, there had been Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Valkyria Chronicles, but Dragon Quest exerted another type of pull...and I can't quite put my finger on it. I will say, however, that the Dragon Quest series has always had a perfect formula: fight difficult monsters, defeat them, obtain gold, buy better armor and weapons, and then kill so-called difficult monsters in one hit.

Repeat.

It sounds somewhat dull on paper, but in practice, the grind can be very addicting. Becoming stronger and "being the very best" has always been a good videogame incentive, and Dragon Quest is probably the master of this tactic. Once I got sucked in, I couldn't put the game down. And that's why I'm giving it 2008 GAME OF THE YEAR! That is, if I cared about GAME OF THE YEAR, but I don't.

This has somewhat opened my eyes a bit to the whole ridiculous Dragon Quest versus Final Fantasy debate -- and I have to say, despite being a Final Fantasy fan since I played X a couple years ago, Dragon Quest has nearly always bested its competition in each and every installment. The slime-slaying series relies more on telling a simple, down-to-earth story rather than delving into melodrama, and as I get older, all the tales revolving around attractive and stylish teenagers in Final Fantasy have become a bit silly. That melodrama silliness has become more and more evident over the years (and especially evident in the recent Final Fantasy IV remake). But don't mistake Dragon Quest's usually light-fared stories as entirely simple, throw-away adventures -- there's certainly depth there. You just have to look for it.

Probably the best, almost-seemingly scripted event in Dragon Quest IV had to be my battle with the Psaro the Manslayer, a multiple-formed, nearly never-ending bastard who made me scrimp and save my magic and dig into the recesses of my inventory just to beat him; in other words, he was the ideal final boss. During his fourth form, Psaro wiped out my ultimate party of Kiryl, Maya, and Alena, and the main character was the only one left standing. I knew within the next turn I was going to lose, and sure enough, the final boss took out the main character as well -- but something strange (and like I said, scripted) happened.

I had an item that, if whoever has it equipped is knocked out, revives all the other members who are out cold, too. So, as it were, Kiryl, Maya, and Alena all returned from the dead, ready to do battle with the bastard that killed them a few minutes before, while the main character lay lifeless on the ground.

He had become a tragic hero, really, like something out of a film or novel. The aspect that amazed me about the whole incident is that it wasn't the developers' intention to happen -- it was something that just occurred naturally during the moments when I was actually playing the game. Later on, I had Kiryl revive the main character, and my party went on to pummel the final boss into submission.

But to have a dramatic event happen randomly like that...that's quite something.

Random Dreams: Part Two

I swear to you, right now, that I am not on drugs. I swear!

There's this dream I've had, one that is quite famous among my friends because I've told it so many times, and it honestly doesn't get any less weird each time I tell it. I have strange dreams -- I can't help it. Speaking of which, many philosophical-minded people seem to analyze dreams and how they pertain to a person's hidden demons or subconscious feelings.

I don't really buy in to that school of thought. That's not really how my mind works: logically, I'm probably insane.

Anyway, the dream begins during one of my science classes in high school. The teacher is an older woman with shoulder-length gray hair, and it should be noted that she and I never really saw eye-to-eye. She's lecturing to the class as always, when she suddenly turns around and says,

"Hold on: I'm going to get the experiment from out of the back room."

Okay, so no big deal, right? Wrong.

After about ten minutes or so, she doesn't emerge from the room, so the class calls upon me to find out what the hell is taking so long. I get up, open the door, and there she is, sitting on a white bucket with her pants down, a determined look on her face.

Now, in the dream, I somehow get a close-up shot of what she's, uh, producing in the bucket, and it turns out to be this:

A vein-y, white sausage. That was her experiment for the class. My god.

If you try to approach this from an analytical perspective, I don't even know where you would begin. I'm sure you could get into the sexual implications or something like that, but that's a topic that doesn't seem too appealing right now. Or ever.

As it stands, the vision of the sausage is something that will haunt me forever.

Hmm.

An Ode to Dr. Salvador

Resident Evil 4 is good. Real good. The Wii version is even better.


Sure, I'd played the shoot-'em-up to death on the Gamecube before (and even bought it the day it was released -- man, I was hyped!), and then I even went out and bought the PS2 version to play the additional "Seperate Ways" segment. Buying the same game twice in unusual for me, but Resident Evil 4 is always worth the extra cash. My love doesn't end there: I think I might have even wrote an ode to the chainsaw man (named Dr. Salvador, apparently) back in high school, praising his fashion sense (the potato sack is a nice touch) and lovely manner in which he proceeded to remove Leon's head from his body. I still have nightmares.

But the Wii version...man, it's really, really good. I haven't played much of the main game because I've been spending most of my time with the Mercenaries mode, which is still as hectic and addicting as it was when I first played it on the 'Cube. The aiming definitely makes the whole shooting system much easier and accurate, and the remote probably (at the risk of sounding like marketing PR) makes the Resident Evil 4 experience that much more immersive.

This is the third time I've bought the game, though, making it the only game I've bought more than twice. It was on sale at Wal-mart and I couldn't resist. My brother finished the final boss over the weekend, and now I'm back into the Resident Evil mania. Why the hell is it still so addicting a few years later when most games lose their shine within the first couple weeks of release? Was it due to the constant revisions? Probably. When a game is in development stew for so long, it had better be a damn near-masterpiece -- and Resident Evil 4 is definitely that.

And the dialogue?

"Rain or shine, you're goin' down!"

Still so bad, yet still so good.

Super Mario Galaxy

I've kinda been down on the Wii for awhile now -- and that's probably because every time I walk into a Wal-mart or a Target and look at their game selection, I'm bombarded with tons of licensed crap. The Wii became more of a disappointment when my sword-wielding and gun-toting ideas for the remote were shot down and Nintendo started releasing anything and everything that absolutely did not interest me. To add to this, the games that have been released (Super Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers, Metroid Prime 3) all haven't been as good as their predecessors; or at least, I believed that until I began to replay Super Mario Galaxy last night.


Maybe I was down on the game because Tim Rogers was down on the game. I think his one main complaint was the fact that every character in Mario Galaxy blatantly tells you what to do and how to do it (for example, when you're swimming and already know how to swim, a penguin glides up to you and squawks, "Press A to swim." No kidding!). But the game is good and amazingly creative. I just can't believe it took me so long to realize it.

You've probably heard all the praise and criticisms from the press, so I'm not going to bore you with mine here (too late!). The only real complaint from the wonderful message-board flunkies that I have to disagree with is about the game's lack of challenge -- seriously, the later levels are hard. Sure, they're not "lose-all-your-lives-forcing-you-to-continue" hard, but I guarantee that everyone who played Mario Galaxy through to its completion will have died many times on, say, "Luigi's Purple Coins". When you begin to curse at a game, you know it either has to be difficult or frustrating (and yes, the later levels are a mix of both).

Still, the game is one of the best I've played, and it actually lifts my spirits in regards to the Wii's future lineup. Here's hoping this, this, and this all live up to expectations...