Yeah yeah, been a blah week here, sorry.  Had some stuff that needed to be taken care of.  Next week'll be better, I pwowmiwse.  Meantime, let's get another survey going.  What was the best day of your life?

A reader was nice enough to mail me this one, and if you've ever played with a Tamagotchi, learn more about those little creatures you raised with Bandai's infamous Tamagotchi Video Adventures.  It's a really odd special featuring Tamagotchi monsters running around Earth looking for souvenirs, ending off with a live action segment where some bored artist teaches kids how to draw Masktchi with the help of a sock puppet named Handy Worhol.  Jesus.  Still not as bad as you might think, and worth a look if you were into the stupid keychains a few years back.

God dammit, I'm obsessed with this game.  Over at Pogo, scroll to the bottom, look to the right and give "The Sims Pinball" a whirl.  What I assumed would be a three-minute amusement has turned into weeks of frustration and multiballs.

As with many of the games on that site, there's a supposed progressive jackpot just waiting for me.  Sims Pinball's jackpot is rapidly approaching the 5,000 dollar mark, and in the words of my Pogo-loving aunt who I see about once a year, usually after someone dies, "that means it's about to hit."  So whatever moments I have to spare are divvied equally between Stupid Sims Pinball and throwing darts at a picture of Michael Fishman because I forgot who he is.

The game is decent enough.  It's got all the usual pinball suspects, but I'd be lying if I said I'd be playing it this much without the jackpot dreams.  My favorite part are the crude Sims girls standing beside the machine, because video games are universally improved with the addition of monstrously ugly women.  Good way to kill time if anyone's got minutes to murder.

Hey, if you've ever wanted to see Mr. Potato Head's kids in their very own cartoon show, your prayers were answered in 1985.  The Potato Head Kids was a seemingly innocent show with a surreal dark streak that becomes clear only now, and my review of one of the episodes proves it with everything from singing potatoes to hip dolphins and a really big sandcastle.  If you ever come across this one on video, set your calendars back to 4/20 before throwing it on.

This assignment was almost mine, but it went to Brian because he's less of a social retard.  Click here to check out an interactive trivia game starring Michael Winslow of Police Academy and Spaceballs fame, who unleashes the total power of his famous mouthy sound effects and challenges the public to guess what he's imitating.  Pretty cool shit.  I had a chance to see the full videos at the office, and this guy is just amazingly talented.  Definitely worth a look.

Got an e-mail requesting this review, but I've already done it, so let's make it a past article spotlight.  Around this time last year, I posted a review of the My Pet Monster live-action video.  Unbelievably odd, stupid and charming, it features an inarguably ugly child improving his look by channeling ancient spirits to transform himself into a flea market child-greeter who growls and eats paper.  Based on the dolls of the same name, the review also includes a few vid clips.

Let's get another survey going.  Hmmm.  Okay, in the comments section, tell us something we don't know about you.  Could be something big, could be something trivial.  Starting with the latter: I'm left-handed.

Hello, is this thing on?  From One Fry 2 Anotha?

An e-mail from the weekend:

"dude i think the blog is brokeneded"

Well said, indeed it was.  Friday marked the first blog meltdown since it's inception in October of 2002, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I probably would've choked myself to death with a coffee machine if my friend Kevin wasn't able to put it back together.  Sure, it's silly stuff, but it's two,enna,half years worth of silly stuff.  I feared the worst (I don't use any kind of posting system on the main site because I have such terrible luck with 'em), but looks like we're back to form without a single thing out of order.

Spent most of Sunday putting the finishing touches of several thousand Transformers-related articles going up on UGO next month.  Three of 'em are DVD reviews, but I don't want to hold off on telling you that Transformers: Season 3 Part 2 & Season 4 and Beast Wars: The Complete Second Season are absolute must-haves for fans.  The Transformers set even includes the semi-rare Rebirth trilogy, where some of the Autobots and Decepticons willingly allow their heads to be modified into baby robots.  Also features the rare appearances of Fortress Maximus and Scorponok.  The three-disc (!!!) set even has the Optimus Prime resurrection two-parter, plus a kickass chapter selection screen featuring a battle-damaged Rodimus skulking about a shuttlecraft.  Awesome, and Amazon has it on sale.

The Beast Wars DVD is a two-discer, and jeez, I'd forgotten how much I love this show.  It'll probably take new viewers three or four episodes to really see the glories within, but once you do, you'll be hooked eye swar eet.  Back to Amazon, they're practically giving the sets away at just twenty-three dollars a pop.  Can't ask for better than that.  The other DVD review was for two quicky Armada titles, and all I'll say about those is that they failed at transforming (HA!!) me into a new fan.  Oh well.

In case ya missed it, I threw a new article up on Friday.  Simple stuff — I get requests for more commercial downloads constantly, and had a bunch laying around that were either already mentioned or not beefy enough for a full tribute.  So, the article has ten.  With reviews and downloads, and a peppered background.  My favorites of this bunch include the spot for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, and a weird old Bugs Bunny ad where he warns about the deadly dangers lurking in every kitchen everywhere every.

So, with the blog outta whack and, uh, all of the trouble in the Middle East, I eased my troubles with another spirited round of LET'S BUY FISH.  Oh yes.  Three of those painted parrotfish I bought a few months back died from that deadly "Ick" disease (picture dipping a fish in a bowl of salt, that's what they looked like), and the trio that survived looked healthy and happy enough to annoy with a NEW FISH INVASION.  Thankfully, Petland is like, thirteen steps away from out apartment.  Here's the new monsters:

An algae eater without a name.  Everyone seems impressed at this guy's size; we were more impressed at how much he resembled a frog trapped in a snake's body.  Unnamed Algae Eater simply strolls along the bottom, sticking his suction cupped mouth all over everything.  Cute, but I can't shake the feeling that he'll disintegrate fast upon death.  Not looking forward to scooping out gooey parts of Unnamed Algae Eater.  Not this week, anyway.

We also nailed two pleco fishies, each pretty huge.  One has the standard color pattern, the other has weird zebra stripes.  I bet he feels cooler than his brother.  I've got a tank full of semi-aggressives, but nobody fucks with the Pleco Pair.  They're too disinterested and spiny.

Okay, my new favorite thing on the planet is this, a Geophagus Whatchamacalit.  For simplicity, I named him "Wolfie," and happily narrate his thoughts as the beast glides through the tank, eating, inspecting and looking all cute n' stuff.  "ME.  WOLFIE.  MARCH.  TOWARDS.  FOOOOOOD."  Guess how long it took for my girlfriend to get sick of that one.  I've seen fish of this type before, but never so large.  Really, really beautiful creature — it's got all of these funky glowy dots, lionfish-like spines and appendages, and eyes that absolutely positively lock with mine and thank me.  Incredibly, the leader parrotfish (a yellow asshole with a God complex) constantly berates Wolfie, even though he's about half his size.

Wolfie has these two feathery strands that hang low while he swims.  I've already made it known that, in the case that Yellow Asshole Parrotfish bites off either one of these strands, he's out in the sun in an empty Dixie cup.  With a fucking bullet in his head, because Wolfie is worth the extra mile.

I think that brings us up to speed.  Sorry for the downtime.  Sorry for the — oh wait, I did have one more thing.  Looney Tunes cereal is about the closest thing to old school Trix we'll ever see.  The fruity balls are a bit smaller, but it's so close to the old non-fruit-shaped Trix.  And this discovery makes me smile.  New article coming tonight, and it's an odd one.  HUGE thanks to Killer Kevin for fixing the Killed Blog.

Consider this the comments section for the two latest articles, while we're at it.