And here we are, the end of the 2006 potentially first annual X-Entertainment August Megaparty. I guess my little scheme worked: Nobody complained that there weren't any "real" articles this month. Actually, those facts are mutually exclusive — it's been a more insanely busy month that the blog update rate would suggest, and I wouldn't have had time for the big ones anyway. Just worked out that way.
This month, we saw everything from Pokemon's 10th anniversary party to Hostess Grizzly Chomps, Pepzi Jazz, Zany Zappers and beyond. I've had fun, and it's taught me that updating the blog on a very regular basis from this point forth is a good idea. Frankly, some of the best times I've had doing this site are when I'm just trying to find stuff to write about. I've gotten to do that everyday this month, discounting those occasions when I updated without really updating. Like I mentioned earlier this week, I plan to keep this spot very active from now on, Megaparty or not.
We're not going to go out with a bang, but we're going to go out with a post. Here it is…
(click to enlarge)
It was a very light day at work, mainly because half of the office took off for vacation, and the other half were so close to the last big weekend of summertime to notice if I was actually doing anything worth paying for. My wallless office cubicle looks like the junior version of my office at home; it's cluttered to the brim with all the things that make me me, along with all the things coworkers were planning to throw away until my open arms made a difference. A lot of the junk is stuff I slowly brought in from home — anything that would fit into my laptop bag-sized bag, because it's not like I was going to carry giant Leatherface statues bare on a crowded morning bus. Other things consist of freebies looted from other workers, including that swank and gigantic inflatable "Scream," based on the yelling dude from Edvard Munch's oft-stolen masterpiece painting.
Whenever work is really light, I start digging around my desk for things to occupy my time with. Such festivals usually end with me sneaking a Friday the 13th DVD onto my screener TV — I long ago lent the boxed set to a coworker, and either due to laziness or pure foresight, never bothered to bring them back home after he returned them. There's good feelings to be had with watching the scene in F13 V where Jason impales the Michael Jackson wannabe as he's taking a shit in the office of a kids' network. A combination of naughty and awesome, I guess.
Pee-wee's Playhouse Colorforms! My former boss, whom I parted ways with after switching departments, gave me this set for Christmas in 2004. She knew it was a great gift, and so did I. As she stood there watching me unwrap, I detected the horror on her face as I immediately tore into the mint sealed box and started removing Colorforms pieces from their protective sheet. I knew the set from eBay; it wasn't worth very much. The look on my boss's face told another story: She bought it at an antique shop, meaning that she paid something in the realm of RIDICULOUS for my Pee-wee Colorforms.
I closed up the box and turned it into a for-display-only item on my shelf, totally trying to ignore the fact that I'd already ripped the bitch open and that the damage was done. I'm sure she moved on five minutes later, but I always felt a little bad about it. Of course, there's statutes of limitations involved with feeling bad, and almost two years later, I thought it was safe to finally pull all the Pterri Colorforms out and make them do obscene things to Cowboy Curtis.
Though Pee-wee's Playhouse is currently airing on Adult Swim, I haven't sat down to watch it. I own some of the DVD sets, but I haven't watched those, either. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's because I loved the show soooo damn much as a kid, I'm afraid to feel anything different for it than what I remember feeling for it. I don't want to watch it and turn it into irony. Doesn't mean that Pee-wee's Playhouse still doesn't hold up as one of the finest programs in the history of fine programs, and even though I've got my weird rule, I'll always make an exception for the Christmas special. I can watch that thing everyday. On most days, I do. Because Grace Jones was supposed to go to the White House.
As far as Colorforms go, this is a pretty rockin' set. An outdoors shot of Pee-Wee's Playhouse both served as a wonderful backdrop for hot Colorforms action, and confirmed for me that some of the pillars seen in the opening credits were indeed giant lava lamps. It's also one of the rare sets where you arguably get too many Colorforms to fit on the board. This is not something to complain about, ever. They even dug deep into the show's more obscure recurring characters, and committed the terrific mortal sin of mixing Penny's world with Pee-wee's world, which never happened on the show because it kind of would've been blasphemy.
It's one of the best Colorforms playsets I've ever seen, partly because it's so inherently maniacal that it doesn't matter if you stick the characters on sideways, upside-down or backwards — everything feels like it fits. Even when I positioned the King of Cartoons in such a way that he appeared to be jamming two film reels into the eyes of the giant sphinx, I never got the impression that I was being rebellious.
As good as the Pee-wee Colorforms were, I couldn't kill more than fifteen minutes or so with 'em. After that, I went back to another well — one I wrote about last month…
Yeah, my coworkers and I are still playing that plug-and-play Street Fighter 2 Genesis thing. I kicked all kinds of ass for many weeks, but admit that the competition has grown a bit fiercer lately. This is mostly due to the fact that we've come up with all sorts of rules, regulations and variations. It started with us outlawing the "cheap" guys, like Honda, Blanka and Chun-Li — warriors who can defeat entire planets simply by hitting their internal "A" buttons over and over again. Eventually, we learned that every warrior in Street Fighter can be a cheap bastard if they tried hard enough. Something had to be done to keep the game interesting, otherwise we'd have nothing left to do but, you know, work.
We always play tournament mode, meaning that two players rail against each other with teams of six warriors each. To make things more unpredictable, we've now taken to drawing the warriors' names out of a glass. Sometimes, someone will end up starting with one of the cheap characters, and the games won't be much different than they normally are. Other times, some poor schmuck will have to begin their journey with Balrog, a man who is completely unaware that his feet exist and can be used in battle. The teams shown above aren't for example purposes — they're teams my friend and I actually drew this afternoon. I was the left column, and let me tell ya, Vega can jump like a sissy all he wants — dude don't stand a chance against my Blanka and his amazing ability to remain perfectly still throughout entire rounds but still kill people because he is swarming with high volt electricity.
When you're playing in tournament mode, there's no greater shame than losing all six of your guys to your opponent's first-up. By the time Blanka was done, Ken, Dhalsim, Chun-Li, Honda and Bison felt like Savio Vega, Fatu and Henry Godwinn at the 1995 WWF Survivor Series. Most of you won't get it, but I'm okay with that.
The August Megaparty may be over, but THE FUN DON'T STOP HERE. And remember, we're just a short time away from the 2006 Halloween Countdown — the event that may very well cause me to finally crack.
This one's going to be short, because my computer decided to be cute and not work for the last hour. I will forgive my computer in time, but right now, I want my fingers off of its keyboard so I can follow through with my threat to make it sit in the corner and think about what it's done.
Swedish Fish have evolved from a sea populated only by darling red herrings to an ocean teeming with life. AquaLife. New-ish Swedish Fish AquaLife are bags of soft and chewy candies that indeed include the famous crimson fishies we all know and love, but add new creatures for them to either team with or destroy.
Seahorses, puffers, starfish and dolphins have joined da fray at da cay, and all of the candies, including the original reds, seem a bit larger than what we're normally used to from Swedishland. Not really in a good way, because half the fun with Swedish Fish is proclaiming that you could "eat X amount simultaneously" and trying to live up to your vow.
It took me several chomps to be confident that what I'm about to say is true: The different colors represent different fruit flavors. At least, I think they do. I'm eating purple things and they taste kind of grapey, but not so grapey that I'd bet the boat on it.
I told you this would be short. I hate my stupid computer.
A few of you have posted premature fond farewells to the August Megaparty. Some good news for ya — I'm hoping to continue the bloggy updating on a very regular basis. I won't say daily, but it's probably safe to bank on every other day, at least. I've had fun with it and see no reason to stop. The only difference for the post-Megaparty era is that I won't post an entry just to tell you that I'm not posting an entry. I almost did that tonight, but Doritos saved me by flavoring itself like a buffalo wing.
"Blazin' Buffalo Ranch" Doritos continue the fairly recent trend of making chips and other kinds of junk food taste like buffalo wings. Buffalo wings minus the chicken, at least. The formula is really just a matter of adding spicy cheesy dust and seasonings akin to ranch dressing, and though there's nothing abnormal at all about that when it's put to paper, you'll still feel like you're eating buffalo wing chips. Which is kind of disgusting, albeit in a kind of thrilling way.
Presented in a bag that's colored so close to baby blue that I'm tempted to call Blazin' Buffalo Ranch the learnin' the ropes, up and comin' younger brother of Cool Ranch Doritos. I like to think that the bags come alive when eyes aren't on them, giving Cool Ranch Doritos the chance to tell Blazin' Buffalo Ranch Doritos what to do, how to be a man, what to wear, etc. Etagramulfabetz.
The new chips are good, but they're so loaded with Dorito Dust™ and spices that it's hard to eat more than a handful in a sitting. Technically, you're not supposed to eat more than a handful in a sitting anyway. I can't exactly say that I'm nuts over them, for it's a fact that in the history of me owning food, no bag of Doritos has ever survived longer in the kitchen than new Blazin' Buffalo Ranch. I just can't eat them without thinking about chicken, and I don't want to think about chicken when I'm eating Doritos.
Which brings us to the point of today's entry. I challenge all of you use the phrase, "I don't want to think about chicken when I'm eating Doritos," in casual real life conversation at some point tomorrow. Do it for me; it's been a rough month.
Wow. Just like that, the Halloween season has begun. It wasn't more than a week ago that I was out gallivanting, sadly gallivanting crying because stores hadn't put out more than a few pumpkin-shaped cookie cutters. Tonight, it was everywhere. There's a Halloween store in the mall — a whole Halloween store, up and active before September even had a chance to roll in. The department stores around here haven't finished up their ghoulish gimmes, but they're getting close. I'm trying to hold off on the immersion for as long as I can; I like knowing that Halloween is out there, but I want to let myself enjoy it in October, too. So, instead of stuffing myself at the mall's Halloween store, I slipped into Best Buy and BIT somebody and DRANK their BLOOD.
Actually, I just got a DVD, but it's a really, really good one. Halloween: 25 Years of Terror is a double-disc set that doesn't nearly advertise enough that it isn't just a re-released Halloween with a few extra features. THERE IS NO MOVIE HERE, FOLKS. NO MOVIE. What you'll get is a gigantic documentary on the Halloween franchise, with everything from interviews to convention footage, tours of filming locations and so forth. I've only watched a couple of minutes so far, but it's boss, and "boss" is not a term I use loosely. Or, you know, ever.
What I really dig about the set is this: I realize that, to some degree, I'm a big franchise whore when it comes to horror, loving the Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises with all of my heart and soul, and in that order of prominence. This is mostly illustrated when I'm at a DVD store. I'll stare at the sections for those three franchises for ten minutes each, even though I already own all of the movies singularly on VHS and DVD, and in DVD box set form. It's a defeatist habit, and I was so stoked to see a DVD that fell under one of those categories that I didn't already own. It was like God spread some clouds, shoved his head in my face and whispered, "Boo."
I'll have more to say about the DVD when I, uh, watch it, but I felt it was my duty to inform the uninformed that it's out there, waiting to make your next lonely Saturday night worth more than Coke and a Sicilian pizza.
Born into a family with three much older moviegoing brothers, I was taught the ways of The Force from very early on. I used this so-called "Force" to make my parents buy me every Star Wars toy, game, doodad and gizmo I could find. Somehow, the official Star Wars tissue brand eluded me.
The Puffs Company hooked up with George and an Ugnaught to provide The Empire Strikes Back Puffs tissues, which were just your ordinary everyday Puffs tissues…in a cooler box. Actually, there were several ESB boxes available, depicting everything from a Dagobah scene to an AT-AT onslaught on Hoth. I guess you bought the Dagobah tissues when you had one of those really mindfuckingly contemplative flus, and the AT-AT attack box when you just had to viciously sneeze constantly.
Though unmentioned in the commercial from which the screengrabs above were taken, each box had a cutout character poster on the bottom. The posters were left uncolored — that task was left for any kids brave enough to try to color in laminated cardboard with a Crayola crayon. Shit don't work, son.
While the television commercial is technically an '80s ad, its motif is far more similar to the many Star Wars toy commercials of the '70s, where the featured product was given a back-seat, so a kid with limited vocational skills could say more in thirty-seconds than John Moschitta Jr. ever did. In the case of the Puffs commercial, at least he's sharing the wordcount with an actress playing his Maw, and later, with C-3P0 and R2-D2. No, really.
First, the mother stuff. She walks in, and the kid's obviously sick, but he wants to play football, so he's acting all bitchy about it. Mom knows just what to do. Yanking a box of Star Wars Puffs from thin air, the child accepts his fate gracefully, apparently believing that being stuck inside sick with a Star Wars tissue box is better than being outside playing with friends. It's not that I don't wholeheartedly agree, but it's hard to imagine a kid who liked football shaking on a deal like this. The football kids were better than us, see.
Quickly losing himself in a sea of Star Wars, the kid's bedroom turns into outer space, and C-3P0 and R2-D2 appear, evidently able to walk around outer space as if it had full gravity and a system of invisible sidewalks. The Droids never address our snot-ridden hero directly, making obvious the fact that we're reusin' some of that fancy green screen footage shot for the film here.
Returning to reality as his mother reenters the room, the child is now a huge proponent of having a cold, and he "can't wait to sneeze again!"
Wait until he notices the cutout poster on the bottom of the box. Boy's gonna piss himself.
I'm seeing dead leaves. It's windy, kind of cold and halfway to stormy. It smells like the inside of a freshly used washing machine outside. Autumnesque Saturday Night Threads were always my favorite.
While cleaning out some boxes, I came across a suspicious plastic bag filled with really old vending machine eggs/toys that I have absolutely no recollection of purchasing. The eggs are really small and the contents universally antiquated to the point where I'm going to say they're '70s era at the youngest, and if for no other reason than to justify the fact that I own them, tonight we are going to see what's inside.
Unworthy of more than a passing mention was a bunch of crappy plastic jewelry, but what's seen above warms my heart to degrees five thousand times greater. Squirmels! Baby Squirmels! "Squirmels," for those unaware, was a collection of soft, fuzzy worms with friendly eyes with an "invisible" wad of twine attached to the each of their noses. The idea was that kids could hold the twine and manipulate the cute worms to look like they were running around under their own power, and lord, I loved those things. These worms aren't of the official Squirmels brand variety, but they're exactly alike in everything except size. If I could hug them without disintegrating them, I would. There were at least ten of 'em in the bag, and that's at least ten reasons for me to do this:
With junky jewelry and happy Squirmels eliminated, what was left was a hodgepodge of goofy toys and charms that remind me very much of the basket full of freebies my childhood dentist would offer up to all the cavity-ridden kids who took their sentences like men. The skeleton figure is a favorite, but I'm also fond of the weird monkey pendant and random black alligator, probably because it gives me the chance to make up some connected history shared between the two. The lady fingertip thing is almost worth another set of emoticons. On the lesser side are the inoperable lockets, stupid yellow cat and lousy balloon. I will chew and swallow them now.
I had to go buy a birthday card this afternoon, and while the lady at my local pharmacy rung up a card and gift bag that cost three times more than any cards and gift bags should, I spotted the weird packages of Tic Tacs seen above. And then…I goofed.
While my mind said "OOOH!" like it usually does whenever strange new candy is first spotted, this time, my mouth decided to follow suit. My dumb stupid mouth. I don't think I can ever go back to this particular pharmacy. I'll forever be known as the "guy who 'ooohed' over new Tic Tacs." They're probably talking shit about me right now.
Anyway, starting with the lesser of the two, "Citrus Twist" Tic Tacs blend lemony yellow and limey green mints together for an assault on the eyes and the tongue and — if you count the pleasant chattering of a box of Tic Tacs in one's pocket — the ears. Pretty sure I could do without another lemon Tic Tac for the rest of my life, but the lime mints are at least interesting, and very, very limey. They would've been better served ditching the lemons, keeping the limes and calling 'em "Margarita" Tic Tacs. Tell me you wouldn't buy "Margarita" Tic Tacs. With a straight face, I mean.
The "Fruit Festival" Tic Tacs are a bigger production; they come in a BIG box that makes me hands look so demure, and the label tells me that they're, in fact, a "limited edition" variation. These are really, really good. Unless you're cherry picking with a watchful eye, there's no way to prepare your mouth for the sensations of various surprise fruit flavors as they dissolve and conspire to make all the saliva in your mouth taste like fruit salad. I don't even mind the lemon Tic Tacs so much when they're hitching rides with cherry and orange.
I mean WHOA HEY, new Tic Tacs! Can today possibly have any more major events in store for me?
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
Posted by Matt @ 11:04 pm [Link] [117 Comments]
