Well, I've hit a new low.  I think I will reflect on the events of today for years to come, forever associating them with me at my most rock-bottomnest, forever favorably comparing even the darkest days of the future to what transpired this afternoon.  After today, I have nowhere to go but up.  At least that's comforting.

It all started a few weeks ago when we were visiting with my mother, who among other unsavory things is a devout Pogo addict.  Pogo, for the uninitiated, is an online game site where people with nothing better to do — people numbering in the hundreds of thousands — spend 24 hours a day playing online slot, card and puzzle games, building up useless tokens and praying to join the minuscule fraction of players who actually win real money from the beast.

As others sat around the table for coffee and whatever, I snuck onto her computer and gave Pogo a whirl.  Indeed, it's an addictive site.  From slot machines filled with oinking pig graphics to online realizations of everything from Scrabble to Vegas-style slot machines, it's mindblowingly mindless fun.

Today, I set up my own account, even going as far as paying the premium for the ad-less version of the site, which also features exclusive games.  My favorite timewaster quickly became Texas Hold 'Em, which is played against real people for real Pogo tokens.  Now, you can play on the low side, or you can go into the high roller rooms, where hands can get up to and over 100,000 tokens each.  While it may seem surprising considering how many Pogo addicts have token counts numbering in the high millions, I found out quick that token-building takes a considerable amount of time — much more time than I could ever afford to spend on Pogo Dawt Cawm.  The poker stars of Pogo won't have me at their tables with my pitiful token count.  Something had to be done.

So, I scoured the Internet, and sure enough, clever housewives have devised systems that, through some means that surely reflect poorly upon Pogo's terms of service, allow newbie players to purchase worthless Pogo tokens for real money.  The short version of the story: I'm out 60 bucks for 10 million shiny new Pogo tokens.

That's right, my friends.  It's kind of like paying one of your neighbors to come beat Zelda for you.  I don't know how the person I paid did it exactly — I had to grant her access to my account, and I believe she and her network of entrepreneurs sat in a high stakes poker room, playing the cards in her favor until my account clocked in at the paid-for token count.  After an hour or two, she sent me an e-mail giving me the go-ahead to play away with my newfound riches.  Whenever I enter a game room now, the other players can do nothing but seethe as the sheer volume of tokens I have forces the token counter table to stretch four pixels wider.

Plus, with that many tokens, I can now afford to give my Pogo avatar (they call 'em "My Mini" icons) all sorts of expensive clothes, haircuts and accessories.  I told you.  New low.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go into the priciest Hold 'Em room and make 100,000 token bets regardless of whether I have a Full House or an 8 high.  I haven't felt like this much of a loser since I paid 80.00 for that Candy Apple Kool-Aid.  Enjoy your Saturday Night Thread.

We didn't go see the new Ninja Turtles movie last night as planned.  Wish I had a good reason for that, but it really just boiled down to becoming obsessed with reading about various Mortal Kombat characters on Wikipedia.  For real.  I'm also now faced with really, really wanting to see The Hills Have Eyes 2 whenever I step foot inside a movie theater, so I'm going to pretend that I'll actually go through with seeing two movies in succession on some nearby Saturday afternoon, when the reality is that I probably won't see either movie until they're packaged with exclusive mini-posters as Best Buy DVD exclusives seven months from now.

More importantly, Spider-Man called me this morning.

What an awesome promotion.  Today marks the in-store debut of Spider-Man 3 toys, and Hasbro has just been totally godlike in their promotional brilliance.  For one, each of the major chains has their own "exclusives."  I think Wal-Mart bests TRU and Target — they've got some really cool black-costumed ultra-articulated Spider-Man figure that looks like the kind of thing that needs to be gracing the top of every geek's computer monitor by the end of the weekend.  It's a safe bet that thousands of collectors zipped to all three stores this morning just to grab the exclusives, and I'm having trouble deciding if I'm happy or sad that I missed all of the hubbub.  At the very least, I hope to own a "Spider Spud" Mr. Potato Head by the next time I shave.

Among the many clever ways that Hasbro has instilled a sense of urgency in the toy-buying public is something that I think people will remember for years and years and years.  If you were smart enough to enter your phone number on a special promo site, you are one of the blessed souls who received a phone call from Spider-Man early this afternoon.  I, of course, couldn't resist.

My phone rang at about 12:20, and I was subsequently treated to a 45 second prerecorded Spidey message reminding me that his new toys are now on sale!  Yes!  Sure, it's just blog fodder for me, but think about all the kids who got that call today.  It's something they'll be writing about on their own nostalgia sites twenty years from now.  Some would argue that we shouldn't dilute the heroism of Spider-Man by making him personally shill action figures and playsets, but who better to inspire people to buy Spider-Man dolls than Spider-Man himself?  Aside from the obvious consumer awareness aspect, Spider-Man just has the perfect salesy voice.  I'd pay a sawbuck for dog shit if he told me to.

In another great albeit totally unrelated promotion, the folks at Frito-Lay are letting us choose between two new Doritos flavors.  After tallying up our votes online, one of the currently limited edition flavors will become a permanent fixture…and the other…will DIE.  The new flavors include "Wild White Nacho" and "Smokin' Cheddar BBQ," and the former beats the latter in every category from taste to packaging design to personal bias.  I will be extremely surprised and suicidal if the BBQ chips win the election, because it's not just that Wild White Nacho Doritos are better…the other ones just flat out suck.  If there is an invisible line in the sand marking the point at which something tastes way too much like concentrated barbecue sauce powder, Smokin' Cheddar BBQ Doritos doesn't just cross it — it crosses it, turns around, pisses liquid chipotle all over it and performs an annoying touchdown dance.  Do the future of junk food a favor — vote for Wild White Nacho Doritos.

In other news, an article of mine is in this month's ToyFare Magazine (#117), titled "Best of the Beast."  It's a three-page look back at Battle Beasts, one of my very favorite toylines ever.  There ain't a heck of a lot of new information in the piece if you're already a big fan of the toys, but I did get to make a decent joke about one of the figures looking like the company logo of a bad fried chicken restaurant.

Let's call this one an early start to the Saturday Night Thread.

Oh, I booked a cruise for later this year.  We're on the Norwegian Spirit.  Anyone have any experience with Norwegian cruises?  Discuss in the comments, please.  I know they're not the greatest line, but they're way cheaper than most of the others, and I'm pretty sure I'd be satisfied vacationing on a floating dumpster so long as it got me away from real life for a week.

Y'all should remember Brian — the guy who occasionally lends X-E its spirited holiday designs?  I've mentioned him before.  Anyway, a while back, Brian landed a job with MTV, which put him exactly ten floors below where I work.  Yesterday morning, I get into the office, and the sugar was barely in the coffee when my phone rang.  It was him.  Did he want to get a jumpstart on X-E's next Halloween design as I've been endlessly suggesting?  No.  He had something much more important to tell me about.  Something magical was set to happen that afternoon, just across the street at the Virgin Megastore.  Half off DVD box sets?  No.  Something bigger.  Something greener.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Live.  In person.  Within humping distance.  Ours for the taking.

With the new movie set to debut, there's also a new soundtrack to go with it, and that's what this little event was for.  Brian was ostensibly covering it for work, and I was ostensibly his photographer for the hour, ostensibly because motherfucking holy shit it is my BIRTHRIGHT to be as close to real live Ninja Turtles as humanly possible.

So, I'm standing in this little gated off section with all of the other photographers, and boy, they were vicious.  Everyone wanted the right angle.  People kept giving me devil eyes when they thought I was stealing their turf, but I was all like, "chill, I'm here to get a few grainy pictures for my blog, grab a complimentary TMNT button and go home."  Only instead of actually saying that, I kinda just looked down timidly.

Soon, the line formed.  I'd be lying if I said hundreds, but certainly, there were dozens of Ninja Turtle maniacs of all ages waiting to shake hands with the lean green fighting machines.  It worked like this: If you bought the soundtrack, you got to meet with the Turtles.  That catch paved way for me getting to eavesdrop on the greatest conversation ever, where a slimy, creepy store manager started complaining to one of the studio peeps about how he was gonna "go into a rage" if people just returned the CDs after getting their Ninja Turtle fix.  If only Hamato was there to mediate.

Finally, the announcement blared over the store speakers.  The Turtles…had arrived.

AND THEY CAME DOWN THE ESCALATOR!  NINJA TURTLES DOWN AN ESCALATOR!  MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!

I just expected them to saunter out onto the tiny platform from some hidden greenroom.  Nope, they arrived by CAB!  And since this was on the lowest level of an 80 floor store, they had to go down like sixty-seven escalator flights!  TURTLES DOWN AN ESCALATOR AHHHHHHHHH

All four Ninja Turtles were present, because you can't have one without the other three.  I held out some small hope that we'd get those funky latex costumes as seen in the old movies, but nah — these were more like really, really, really expensive Ninja Turtles Halloween costumes.  Adequate, but nothing that was going to get me to ask Raphael if he liked Critters enough to see Critters 2.  In honor of the affable event climate, the Turtles sadly left their gear at home.  No big sticks, and no swords.  They also took a vow of silence, refusing to speak even when children asked them questions that couldn't be answered with a simple yes-or-no headshake.

After letting the press direct the Turtles through 450,000 action poses, the patient fans were finally allowed to mingle with their heroes.  The kids and twenty-something goofballs went home happy, and because I was in the right place at the right time, I went home with a swank set of Ninja Turtles promo magnets.

Soon after, I returned to the office, pretending that I'd just gotten back from another grueling errand.

I just got back from my trip to Neptune.  Swank.  It took me a while to remember that Pluto got the boot, so technically, I was vacationing at the furthest possible distance from our apartment in the entire solar system.  Though there wasn't much to do there outside of making funny helium voices, it was a relaxing trip, and I'd go again in a heartbeat.  Had to stop at the grocery store before coming home to pick up cat food, and I'm glad I did, because it bookended my vacation with a big container full of new Bubble Yum ice cream.

Yes, from Breyers, it's the official Bubble Yum bubble gum ice cream flavor.  While it would've likely been much easier to transform Bubble Yum into some kind of sherbet, I must applaud the incredible effort that had to go into making it ice cream.

Packaged in a blindingly pink box that's way too loud to ignore, it was pretty embarrassing to wander around the store with this shit in my cart.  Much like you can't walk the streets with a cute puppy without everyone stopping you to chat about it, you simply cannot go food shopping quietly with a box of Bubble Yum ice cream in your grocery wagon.  People were all over it.  I had to explain what it was and where to find it at least five times to nosy fellow shoppers, and even when we were on the checkout line, the cashlady pulled out her patented headshake of disbelief before performing the price scan.  Was it worth it?  Not really.  Stuff sucks.

I will give Bubble Yum ice cream credit; it really does taste like Bubble Yum.  It's just that gum isn't conducive to becoming a premiere ice cream flavor.  It's kinda medicine-like.  Also odd is the fact that instead of chocolate chips or little puffs of cookie dough, it's got tiny pieces of bubble gum sprinkled throughout.  Why is this odd?  Because the gum pieces are in no way, shape or form like Bubble Yum.  They're like bootleg Chiclets. And because they're frozen, they're rock hard and fully capable of chipping a tooth.  What are you supposed to do with these when you're eating the ice cream?  Spit 'em in a side bowl and save for later?  I cang understang.

Plus, since I am the only person above the age of six who would desire Breyers Bubble Yum ice cream, I can't help but wonder if parents are really going to want to serve their children something so rife with pellets that technically shouldn't be swallowed.  The whole thing's a big failure in execution, but I do admit to feeling a certain sense of euphoria when I open my freezer door and get to have five-second staring contests with a box of gum-flavored ice cream.

Matt: did you hear the latest in the viacom/youtube thing
BrianJs: the suing for 1 billion dollars?
Matt: no
Matt: old news
BrianJ: what's the new news
Matt: viacom had jon stewart film videos — viral videos — now on youtube — blasting youtube and talking about why the suit was necessary, but in a funny way
BrianJ: i don't see them on youtube
Matt: that's because i'm lying, and you're an idiot
BrianJ: you can't lie about something that could be easily possible
BrianJ: lamest lie ever
Matt: yes, viacom making jon stewart film viral videos to be posted on youtube mid-lawsuit — very likely indeed!
BrianJ: did you hear that i got snapple apple for lunch? PSYCH! i had cranberry raspberry
Matt: in that context, you meant "sike"
BrianJ: shut up

SNT now, more later.

I don't believe I've ever played any of the Primal Rage video games, so when I first stumbled onto the corresponding toyline in 1994, it was all Greek.  But, it was a good kind of Greek, like a kalamata olive, or Jesse Katsopolis.

As every character in the game was some form of monkey-on-steroids or dinosaur, every figure in the toy collection was worth having.  Figures based on video games can be pretty sucky and barebones, but a lot of thought went into these.  From the accessories the figures came with down to the way they were packaged, Primal Rage toys were well worth the fifty cents most stores charged, because damn, these things were hideously unpopular and traveled to the clearance racks faster than the speed of light.

As evidenced by the crushed package, this guy's been laying on the bottom of a cramped storage box for over a decade.  It's "Blizzard," my absolute favorite figure in the series, largely due to Blizzard being the line's answer to the mythological Yeti.  Blizzard was one of the good guys — a "Virtuous Beast," who fought for the side of right along with three random dinosaur dudes.  Together they battled against the "Destructive Dinos," which despite the name, featured a bad guy by the name of "Chaos" who looked like the twin monkey brother of Blizzard, only this time with a red and green Christmas-themed color scheme.  Long sentence.

Each of the figures came with a tiny "Mini-Primal" humanoid, and here's where it gets interesting.  With Blizzard and the other good guys, these humans were said to be "followers," but if you bought a bad guy, they were victims, to be chomped, eaten and otherwise brutalized.  This makes me wish Blizzard was a bad guy, because it's going to suck exiting official canon when I make him bite the little orange fucker in two.

The primary figures were about six inches tall, but there was also the "Super Rage" series, which had the same figures scaled up to double that size.  The bigger figures were unbelievably cool but really expensive, and I could never seem to find them on clearance.  Just last year, the giant-sized version of Blizzard was repurposed and packaged with a Ninja Turtle figure in some weird two-pack.  Check it out here.  I don't know why I don't own that set.  I've got three copies of Event Horizon on DVD, but not that?  I don't even like Event Horizon.  Two hours of crap just to hear Lawrence Fishburne say "this place is a tooooomb" ain't the kind of tradeoff I'm into.

Happy SNT.