The X-Entertainment Blog!

06/06/2008: X-Entertainment is ready for some football.

I’ve gotten a few e-mails from readers wondering if I was slowly abandoning the site. Well, duh, I thought not posting for weeks on end would make that pretty obvious. ALL KIDDING ASIDE, this will be my last post ever. ALL KIDDING ASIDE AGAIN, no, not abandoning, probably will never abandon, even when I’m in my sixties. Unless I’m dead, though I admit to finding some secret joy in the notion of being the first to blog from the grave. I don’t know if the site’s best days are behind it or still ahead, but I don’t particularly care either way. After doing this ten years and evolving past the point of it being a personal necessity, I enjoy knowing that I will not be empty inside if I’m not on here for a week here and a week there.

But no, not stopping. Why would I? In a strange way, I actually enjoy writing for the site more now than I ever have. I always did this because I wanted to, but I definitely don’t “need” to now. And not “needing” to means that I can write garbage about my socks and not have to worry about it being Digg-worthy. Right now, it’s just for kicks, and that’s the way I want it to be.

~~Ertl, the toy company chiefly known for rhyming with “Squirtle”~~

Ertl, the toy company chiefly known for producing toy cars made of the kind of metal that can dent a football helmet if you throw it right, has rarely ventured into the “true” action figure market. Still, they managed to nab at least a few home runs, even if those home runs didn’t exactly translate to huge sales. Socket Poppers, an extremely quirky collection of action figures from 1991, was one of the best toy lines you’ve absolutely never heard of.

The dude shown above is actually just a mutant made up from four different Socket Poppers figures, and that was the gimmick: The figures’ limbs could be mixed and matched to create wholly unique characters. Having spent most of my childhood yearning for the opportunity to make Swamp Thing wear Dracula’s leg and a pterodactyl wing, Socket Poppers provided both catharsis and full-blown permission to tear apart my toys like a deranged murderer. In some circles, they might call this a twofer.

Incredibly, Socket Poppers didn’t even need the mix-and-match body part gimmick to hold my interest, because even when left with their original limbs intact, they were among the greatest action figures I’ve ever chewed on when nobody was looking. Check out the diversity, featuring everything from a “Monster Fly” to a ripoff Terminator to an especially leggy Mr. T. It was akin to M.U.S.C.L.E. figures being brought to life in glorious, four-inch posable color, with the added bonus of switchable heads! Or so said the description in the 1991 JC Penney Christmas catalog. Drunks.

The line’s relative obscurity makes collecting Socket Poppers both really easy and insanely difficult. You’ll rarely find them on eBay, but when you do, they’ll cost pennies. Figurative pennies, at least. Dollars, if you want to get literal. I hate you.

The back of the package contains an interesting fact, and one so wordy that I’m not even gonna attempt to paraphrase it: “Assuming there were no duplications in their work, one trillion people each working continuously for one trillion years could complete less than one one-billionth of the possible combinations offered by all 16 Socket Poppers characters.”

Sounds a little fishy to me, but I guess I can’t disprove it. I can’t afford to spend the next trillion years creating Socket Poppers characters. Not when there are Doritos that taste like Mountain Dew to eat.

Okay, these are such old news by now, but new Doritos “The Quest” tortilla chips provide both a clunky product name and the chance to eat chips patterned after the fruity flavors of Mountain Dew. Without delving too deeply into the corresponding viral campaign (mainly because I cannot resonate tortilla chips having viral campaigns), chip-eaters from around the globe were invited to some wacky website to enter guesses as to “The Quest’s” mystery flavor. Lo and behold, it’s Mountain Dew.

I say with all confidence that those responsible for the campaign leaked the correct answer, because nobody –absolutely nobody– would’ve ever guessed Mountain Fucking Dew as the flavor. These chips DO NOT taste like Mountain Dew, and I believe that to such a degree that I’m actually sitting here all preemptively appalled at any forthcoming comments from those of you ready to swear that you thought they did without already knowing that they were supposed to. YOU ARE LYING; we both know it.

If you want a truer sense of the flavor, picture mashing a box of Froot Loops up into dusty grains and pouring said grains into a bag of salty Doritos. Doesn’t sound appetizing? Well, good, because these are decidedly repulsive, eaten more for the thrill of knowing that you’re eating something inherently wrong than for, I dunno, underscoring network television with the steady crunching sounds of Dorito chewing. While I concede that the initial flavor shock quickly wears off and they end up being only a minor offense to society at large, I can’t say that “The Quest” Doritos are any good.

And besides, didn’t they just do this same exact concept with those X-13D cheeseburger chips? Et tu, Frito Lay?

I don’t know why Dew-flavored Doritos are making me write so crankily. I suppose we all have our buttons.

When it comes to music, I’m an asshole. It’s why you’ll rarely find me writing about it. I have the worst taste in music in the entire history of people listening to other people making noises. Dead serious. Aside from having absolutely no knowledge, insight or opinion about the current music industry at large, what I do listen to is so heinous and embarrassing that I find myself shielding my iTouch screen from view whenever I’m flipping through playlists during my morning bus commute. Case in point: I don’t think a day has gone by for over a year now that I haven’t listened to the Freddy’s Greatest Hits album…in full.

I’m not joking. I actually like the songs. And not in some harebrained “novelty” way. While it’s true that I got a good laugh the first time I heard Robert Englund mixed in with a bunch of stock pop singers doing altered covers, I’ve come to honestly enjoy the album, much in the same way normal people enjoy normal music.

Freddy’s Greatest Hits consists of nine songs performed by The Elm Street Group, which is really just a bunch of studio musicians competent enough to make songs with titles like “Do The Freddy” and “Down In The Boiler Room” not sound like the musical equivalent of frog ass. Englund is all over the album too, but he doesn’t exactly “sing” — he kinda just adds minute-long cackles here and there. Somehow, what should’ve been hilariously bad is actually hilariously decent, and though I don’t expect to convert anyone since it takes about 80 listens to get to the point where you’ll accept that this isn’t complete and total shit, you can click here to hear the whole album and decide for yourself.

Uhhh, I was going to go a little longer on this entry, but I think that’s enough for today. Back tomorrow. No, really, I will be.

If XE ever went, I wouldn’t have much place to go for decent online entertainment. I rarely comment but check almost daily for years. Good article, Matt. And dare I say….first post!

Wow, I had to read that “trillion people” paragraph three times and it still baffles me.
I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to taste those doritos but I don’t think I’d want to anyway.

Sorry Tony, but I felt the need to point out that despite my lack of a good internet connection during the past weeks, I have been at least looking at the page. I’ve been a baaaaaaaad X-Eer.

Also, for a second I thought Matt was going to make some sort of bizarre Weezer reference with that Freddy’s Greatest Hits thing. While scrolling I could have sword I saw “The Red Album” in there.

I had the Vampire/ swamp monster and the Sheriff/ Robot Socket Poppers. The robot had to have been my favorite, he just looked so evil and he had a gun molded onto his back that reminded me of Cobra Commanderâ€™s gun. I still have them though the Vampire’s bulb joint things are in bad shapeâ€¦ Thatâ€™s all Iâ€™ve got in regards to the topics at hand. Donâ€™t judge me.

Oh man I remember those figures. Socket poppers huh ? Cool name. I forgot the name, but never forgot the line. I can’t remember which ones I had, but I had alot of em. My favorite one was and is the Fly Moster one.

In the very short time between me clicking on the link to the Freddy album and me reading through the rest of the article, reading the other comments, and writing this, I’ve fallen in love with this music; genuinely and without a sense of irony.

Holy crap, I actually HAD the Dinosaur Socket Popper! Where it is now? I have no idea. Would it still have all its limbs? No idea.

Whoa! Are there any Olde English fans here? Listen to the Freddy song “Dance…Or Else!”, then listen to the Olde English song “Don’t Dance”. The similarity is subtle and almost certainly coincidental, but a bit surprising, all the same.

The Indian figure would never be made today. The P.C. police wouldn’t allow it. Anyway, Indians don’t have tomahawks anymore - they have slot machines and blackjack tables.

Glad ya not dead. Even if I don’t comment here much, I still get giddy and read when a new blog is up, even if it’s about your socks.

Speaking of the dew. Try the new user designed flavors. there the best and sweetest dews since game fuel! Voltage is my new addiction!

That Freddy album isn’t so bad, and I’m a totally pretentious indie asshole.

sorry’s I’m tired but cannot sleep tonightz. My typing maybe i ccccccncherent,…fnite..love ya all

So glad you’re back. I’m the type of person who actually starts to worry if you don’t post for awhile. I feel like someone who understands rules of probability might be able to figure out how many combinations one could actually make out of socket poppers.

I know there’s some kind of mathemagical way of verifying that claim, but it seems to me that if there are 16 characters with 5 variable appendages…yeah, that trillion billion stuff seems excessive.

I’m so glad you’re not abandoning the site as I only just found it and I love it. Am currently listening to Freddy in all his glory.

Incredibly, Socket Poppers didn’t even need the mix-and-match body part gimmick to hold my interest, because even when left with their original limbs intact, they were among the greatest action figures I’ve ever chewed on when nobody was looking.

AHAHAHAHA! *sniff* I miss you, Matt. Why can’t someone hold all your Bulbasaur figures for ransom and force you to make the site a necessity again? I’d do it, but I have a sock drawer to clean.

Good to hear from you again, Matt! I can understand how you feel about the Freddy Album. I like listening to old school power rangers songs, and I like the theme to Walker: Texas Ranger(sung by Chuck Norris himself!) We X-E-ers are no strangers to ecclectic musical tastes!

Oh my God, we’ve totally got the Freddy’s Greatest Hits album at my radio station. I’ve actually played a couple of songs off of it on my show for laughs and deemed it so incredibly horrible that I would never play anything from it again. Just Monday night, I picked it up, thought about it, and put it right back on the shelf. Maybe I should give it another chance.

Ok, I’m just going to say it because no one else has and it’s only a matter of time. Let’s just get it out of the way:

Stay stong Matty Matt McMaterson! This site is my secret Joy but shit Ten years? I had no idea you have been doing it that long! Is that counting when this was a wrestling blog? Who the fuck cares right? No good to see you back my buddy who has never wrote me or spoken to me and has no idea who I am! Put out what you can we will all lap it up like starving hounds.

I was convinced that it was just Doritos dusted with that lime flavoring they used on Tostitos a couple years back. Will have to go back to my half-eaten bag and try another chip or two.

I havne’t heard the greatest of things on the MD Doritos so, I think I’ll just skip them and focus on trying at least one of the three new MD flavors.

What a happy day!! I’m going on vacation and there’s a new post! Funderful!
I didn’t know it until now, but I actually had one of those Socket Poppers that was composed of several different guys. My grandmother picked it up for me at a yard sale because she thought it was “the most odd little toy.” I guess it made sense to her to give the odd toy to her odd grandaughter!
Just a few more hours and vacation freedom!!

i too am more of a lurker and less of a contributor here but i love your work matt, keep it up when you feel like it. i have been reading the site for at least six years now so it is part of my daily routine.

Oh man, the link to the Freddy album has reminded me and made me realize this is quite possibly the *perfect* place to ask: I need a few horror/halloween/general scarytime-themed songs to stick into a mixtape for a Friday 13th party I got coming up. Any ideas?? All I’ve managed to come up with is Thriller, The Monster Mash and the Ghostbusters theme. The Freddy album may provide some extra ammo, but more suggestions would be awesome.

It seems like they just tried to run a straight permutation calculation on the number of components. Counting heads, limbs, and torsos, that would give us 96!, or 9.9 x 10^149.

For those of you who are a bit rusty on your scientific notation, that’s 99 followed by 148 zeroes, and a very considerable sum. And to be fair, if that’s the number we’re working with, if a trillion people wanted to build a billionth of those combinations in a trillion years, each person would have to do 3.1 x 10^108 combinations per second.

Sadly, that’s not the proper calculation, it’s just the one that everyone remembers from Algebra I. In fact, that number represents the different orders you can put all 96 components in.

In this case, the total number of Socket Poppers can be thought of as a combination lock with six reels (head, each arm, each leg, torso) with sixteen possible positions on each reel. That gives us the calculation 6^16 and the much more reasonable figure of 2,821,109,907,456 possible combinations.

That’s a pretty respectable number, and if they’d put it on the package it probably would have been more interesting than what they came up with.

Incidentally, the trillion people trillion years bit only works out if each Socket Popper takes 354 sextillion years to put together. Since that’s about 26 trillion times the age of the universe, I wouldn’t advertise the fact if I were them.

Wow…just…wow!! That he does…And I have the nerve to call myself an engineer.

i hang my head in shame.

Matt
Glad you’re back, but I’m disappointed. You said you would write about your garbage socks, but I see nothing pertaining to socks in the pictures!

Seriously, just keep writing, whatever you do…you have a natural ability to make the most mundane things interesting. If you write about it, I’ll read it…

Hurrah numbers! Be sure to tune in next week, when we’ll be finding examples of the Fibonacci sequence in Garbage Pail Kids cards.

I loved the Garbage Pail Kids. I used to have an album with stickers. I’m ashamed to say I recently threw it away. I did a major cleaning overhaul in the garage and some sacrafices had to be made.

I’m not sure this is entirely correct.
Using your combination lock analogy, you should think of it has a lock with 16 reels, with 6 postions each. Since you have 16 figures, each with 6 possible parts. This calculation gives an even more reasonable 16,777,216. Though, I am rusty on this, so excuse me if I’m wrong, I don’t think that’s the proper calculation to use…

I also ran it through excel using the COMBIN function. if you enter =combin(96,6). meaning the number of combos you get from 96 different parts with 6 parts in each set. This turned out 927,048,304. This number seems FAR more realistic.

Yea, those Doritos taste more like a margarita than MD. There is a distinctive lime/salt combination to them.

BgBlyStyle: Here’s how I arrived at my figure: each reel represents a single body part type, because each body part only fits in one slot. The sixteen heads are all going to go in the head socket, the sixteen left arms are all going to go in the left arm socket, and so on. It looks like it might be possible to switch the left and right arms, but if you look at the football player’s throwing arm it would be weird and backwards if you switched it to the other socket.

combin(96,6) represents drawing six entirely random pieces from the pile, and there’s nothing to stop you from coming up with three torsos, two heads, and a leg, which don’t add up to a viable figure.

I’m having trouble coming up with a physical representation for 16^6, but I think 6^16 is more appropriate. Hang on, I need to go get some scratch paper.

AH! I see. Makes sense!! I’m gettin my paper too. lol. The universe is about to implode.

I knew it. I knew this would happen. Sooner or later math would come into conversation.
But I must say I am impressed, Jedoc and BgBlyStyle.

I’m starting to dislike the marketing direction Doritos has taken. Bring back Jay Leno and zombies.

mix-match toy monsters, mountain dew flavored doritos, and freddy’s greatest hits.

Jedoc & BgBlyStyle I think there is only one way to settle this…a dance off.

This brings up a good story. I was drinking one night in college (many of those nights) We decide to go to this local dance club. I was feeling pretty good already. They had an 80’s room!! Billie Jean comes on…keep in mind, I’m 6′3”, 240lbs. I start doing the MJ dance. Spinning, moonwalking (didn’t know i could), the hat flip, EVERYTHING. I shit you not, the crowd parted, and it was me an this other dude in an offical DANCE OFF!!! The place went nuts! My friends were yellin, “That’s right!! That’s my friend right there.” I wish i remembered more. I remember dancing, the rest of the night is lost forever! lol. The was my 3.2 minutes of fame.

Wow, I was just about to thank you for posting an awesome article on my birthday as well! I had a bunch of Socket Poppers back in the day, glad to see pictures of them again. I think I’ll pass on the fruity Doritos though…and the math too. Anyone else with a 6/6 B-Day?

BgBlyStyle Great story! My best friend loves having dance off’s with people! It’s hilarious! Now, I got Billie Jean in my mind…thanks a lot!

When will we get Nacho Cheese flavored Mountain Dew to go with these AMAZING chips?

Happy birthday fellow Geminis! June is the best month for birthdays, not that I’m biased or anything.
The X-E Dance Party would be off the chain bananas.

Since I’m not a math person, but I am (ok, was) an advertising person, the question of which number is right hinges on whether the sockets are all the same size. If they are, then it’s possible to put a head in leg socket and the left arm in the right arm socket, and so on. It may look stupid, but it *is* a possible position and any ad writer worth his pay would count it if he was trying to come up with impressive “facts”. The actual number would, I think, be slightly smaller than 96!, because I don’t see how you could attach one body to another.

BgBlyStyle: I would accept your challenge, but in light of your story my legal counsel has advised me to come down with a bum knee.

Whoop, there goes that knee of mine, couldn’t possibly, terrible shame, bad luck.

Well, you all knew somebody had to say this, and forgive me if somebody beat me to it in a previous thread:

Okay I just got some weird error so I’m trying this again. Sorry if it posts twice.

No, seriously. That sounds like the worst idea ever. I hate Mountain Dew (blasphemy, I know), and I’m honestly not all that big on Doritos these days either. XD

Okay, I don’t know how the order of my sentences got mixed up like that, but whatever.

I might as well take this opportunity to say SUMMERRRR MEGAPARTYYYY. YES. I’m so looking forward to that.

Jedoc Phew! That was a close one. I’m not quite in the shape I was back then. I prolly would’ve been hospitalized. One shouldn’t gamble like that with their health.

Oh man what a Halloween mini-pump with the Freddy album! Yay Matt. I’ve been stocking up on spooky vinyl myself before the season starts. Just picked up Whodini- Haunted House of Rock (NEON GREEN ALBUM) and Halloween 3- Season of the Witch OST. If you’ve never heard Haunted House of Rock, Matt, you /reaaaaallllly/ need to check it out.

I wake up all excited for a new post and what do I get? Math, dance-offs, Mountain Dew flavored Doritos and Freddy singing in my ear! I’m going back to bed!!!

I have no one but this site to blame for the fact that I know all the lyrics to “Dance…Or Else!” and “Big Bad Wolf” (well you sure don’t look like your grandma…)

By the way, don’t think anyone has mentioned it, but today is Robert Englund’s b-day. He’s the actor that portrayed Freddy Krueger. So, Happy Birthday Robert!

I thought the whole point of life was to be able to get to the point where your were doing things because you wanted to instead of being forced to; congrats on your zen-like level of understanding.

But, oddly, I don’t mind thinking about Mountain Dew while I eat my Doritoes, so it may work

Steffanio: Hulk Rules! is unquestionably the best cassette I have ever heard, and this is coming from someone who wore out a copy of Christmas Rap, which was then replaced by my awesome friend.

When the going gets tough, the tough get rough, he-ey, ho-o, come on - let’s go!

and matt we love you! so glad to read anything- i read the archives everyday while i eat lunch!

That writing on the back of the box got me interested, so I used a factorial function on my calculator to figure our just how many combinations you could make with the figures pictured on the box, so it came out to be 9.91677934870948600×10^140 (nine point whatever times 10, 140 times over,its like a vigintillion or something like that….I googled it). So it totally seems plausible now that it might take a trillion years with a trillion people to make up all of the configurations. Wow I am a total nerd.

I don’t know. The Mt Dew Doritos aren’t that bad. Just add a few Corona’s with lime (and I’ll be the first to admit I hate Corona) and you get that whole “I’m on a beach” feeling. At least in your mouth. Without the sand.

Damn, I didn’t take into account that the lefties would only fit in left holes and righties would only fit in right leg holes. DAMN YOU MATH! you will be the death of me, and I will have my revenge…and then we will make up and all with be right with the world once more.

Matt: My wife just about shit a brick when she saw that Freddy album. She’s a bit obsessed with the horribly burned sociopath. I think she’s on E-bay RIGHT NOW just looking for a copy.

Toxikfoxx: THE ADDING OF LIMES TO THINGS MUST BE BROUGHT TO AN END. I once loved limes in a variety of my beverages. Now that they are going ahead and putting the lime in for me, I AM VERY UPSET. My pairing knife is starting to feel like he’s been abandoned, and those cute little limes I buy at the grocery store are beginning to resemble orphans that nobody wants.

When I was at Walgreens the other night, I saw Burger King Ketchup and Fries chips. The chips are long, thin and vaguely fry-shaped according to the package. I was gonna buy some but Walgreens was charging like two bucks for a really small bag, so I passed.

I’ve got that g#d d#*n “Do the Freddy” song stuck in my head. HELP!!!!!!!!

I’d found the cheeseburger Doritos during that marketing campaign, but am still sans a bag (or three) when it comes to locating the Mountain Dew-variety. As far as Freddy goes, as an ’80’s child, I was really into commercial rap, and both The Fat Boys and Will Smith did Nightmare on Elm St.-influenced songs. Why didn’t Jason get any musical odes?

RTW Because we wouldn’t be able to hear Jason clearly behind that mask of course.

So I was just at lunch (eating alone FTW!!) and none other than Billie Jean comes on the radio at Wendy’s. It was all I do to keep from moonwalking and pelivc thrusting the 80 y/o woman in the booth next to me! Cooler heads prevailed, so I’m not in jail! YAY!

My first post to a site that has long been my favorite. Matt seems down lately. Despite his reassurance, I still fear for the future of X-E. I hope it stays fun and never becomes a chore to him.

yeah, I’ve had similar experiences at Wendy’s, they play some surpising stuff in there!

Cai a few years ago I made a Halloween CD I called Slumber Party Massacre 37 (37?!?). It’s around here somewhere…I’ll try to find it and post the tracklist for you.

That Freddy album is just bad…but I understand guilty pleasures…i makes me long for Turtle Power and The Simpsons Sing the Blues.

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers soundtrack (and movie) were my 2 guilty pleasures in high school….I still rock out to that cassette tape now and then. Heck, that album is how I discovered They Might Be Giants.

Forgot to share. At lunch, I saw a disgruntled employee get mad and walk out the door as the people at the registers begged him to come back. I half expected him to come back in shooting. It would’ve complimented my week nicely. I think I would’ve sat calmly and finished my chicken sandwich. After having the gas stolen from my gas tank yesterday, and various other things going wrong, I’m VERY glad today is friday and there are is less than 2 hours left in the work day.

Muppet Baby
I am a huge They Might Be Giants fan, but I had no idea they had anything to do with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Maybe you can help me find the answer to something that has been plaguing my brain for weeks-There are a few Dunkin Donuts commercials out now advertising for their coffee or something. One has a song about how other coffee shops have hard to pronounce drinks. They use the word “Fritalian”. And the other commercial is about cleaning up after an all night party and drinking their iced coffees or something. I could swear the songs are sung by They Might Be Giants, but I can find no one who knows for sure. Any ideas?

Oh man I CAN’T STOP playing Mario Kart Wii ! And you know what ? I’m good at it too !

Hell, I don’t want to drink about Doritos when I’m drinking Mountain Dew (which is never).

I love this site, everything’s back to normal…except for that squid in the corner, where did that come from?

That squid in the corner..that squid in the spotlight! Stealing my religion!!!
What can I say Norb inspires me to sing!

Thanks Dan. That commercial comes on about a billion times a day and it has been driving me nuts! I will sleep better tonight.

Teddy Ray
Simpsons Sing the Blues is an awesome cd. My brother and I were addicted to it when it came out. We would play it on loop all day everyday. Must have drove our parents crazy. Ah, memories… I think I’ll put it in right now…

Hey guys. I never comment on the site, but check it daily. But I just found something that I thought might interest some of you.
I’m killing time at work on a Friday afternoon, so I decided to meander to the cafeteria. I check out the vending machine and something catches my eye. A red M&Ms bag? What could this be?? Wild Cherry M&Ms?! I gotta try these.
Upon further review, they aren’t too bad. The first handful were decent, but once I got to the end of the bag, I wasn’t as impressed.

Well, I hate the thought of no regular updates being a given…but it saves me money in junk food that I need to try because “everybody else online is doing it.”

Also, my 20 days in a row of no working starts today. I could not be more excited. Whee!

My 365 days of not working started last July. Funny thing is, I haven’t missed a day of work yet. *drum roll, cymbal crash*

Yes, almost all of the new Dunkin Donuts commercials feature a song by They Might Be Giants. I’ve been a huge fan of theirs for years, and “SenSurround” from the Power Rangers soundtrack is one of my favorites. I’ll still pop that CD in occasionally, along with the first Pokemon soundtrack!

So, I just opened up my refrigerator and apparently something died in there. Now, I got to clean it to figure out what it is…ugh!

i think it’s kind of sad that they might be giant’s best output in the past 10 or so years has been for commercial work and childrens albums. still, i’ll take it.

I always loved your playlists! XD I was so sad when the Halloween playlist stopped working and I didn’t get to here “Do the Freddy” (or a hundred other awesome songs you had on there) anymore. I also am the type of person who has heard the Ninja Turtles original movie and Ghostbusters soundtracks more times than I can count.

This album is really funny…every time Freddy chimes in and riffs off of the legit singers it sounds like he is talking into an old coffee can.

Ok, I tend to do math problems in overly simplified ways involving logic and physical models instead of formulas, and this is what I get:

each torso can fit 5 limbs (head counts as a limb) and each limb can fit in any of the five spots (awkward or not) which means each spot on the torso holds 80 possible limbs,

no two spots can hold the same limb at the same time which means we cannot continue without dropping numbers, however, there is no rule that says one or all of the other spots can be limbless. This puts us up at 81 possibilities for each socket

but are we talking about individual figure possibilities? or are we counting all the different possible action figures that could occur at one given time? that simply requires multiplying the number again by 16, with the given that torsos cannot share limbs, and torsos can lack any or all limbs.

*head explodes*
Cammon- If I wanted to do math, I would have gone to REGULAR College instead of ART COLLEGE.
psh.

Anyway. I really need to find those Mountain Dew Chips.’Cause I love mountain Dew. And While I’m not the hugest Doritos fan, I love an excellent sweet/salty combo. So the idea of Drinking Mountain Dew while Eating Mountain Dew Chips has aroused my tastebuds.
Though, in fairness, I did just get over the stomach flu and was amazed that my Sweet-and-Sour-Pork puke didn’t taste worse when it made its re-appearance.

so back when they had the choose a flavor competition, i became OBSESSED with the smokin’ cheddar bbq doritos. shortly after they were picked as the “flavor champion” and i was just becoming comfortable with them in my normal routine, they vanished from store shelves. just completely, everywhere, at the same time. i was pretty blindsided by this as i wasnt familiar with how things go in the chip business, and wasnt expecting the champion to take his title and retire so soon. ever since ive been shamelessly visiting all convenience and grocery stores in neighboring towns to see if a few stale bags remain, and ive been searching the internet every few days, but to no avail. i was crushed enough to not buy doritos anymore at all. (which wouldnt really happen but thats how i felt!) so when i saw these new doritos, i was ecstatic, maybe something to fill the hole that the absense of smokin’ cheddar bbq has left in my soul. but they were SO BAD. i had one. then each of my friends had one. now we are thinking of making a video to send to doritos of all of our friends tasting the chip for the first time and their reaction.

I’m still going to pass on the Doritos. I don’t mind going through life never having tasted them.

I will pass on the Doritos too…on a side note, if you live in Canada and have SCREAM TV, Ghoulies 3 is on right now!

I was at the mall a couple weeks ago with a group of friends, and somebody brought a bag of Quest chips. Out of the 16 of us, 3 people actually liked them, the others thought they were terrible. I was one of the 3. I have plans this weekend of obtaining more.

So, I was thinking of what to do tonight and in doing so I got comfortable at home and don’t feel like going anywhere now. Trying to see which friend I can bug to come over and join me for a while.

I tried, I really did..but my local stores don’t sell tootsie roll pops, My mission is a failure before it has even begun.
It’s all up to you now DC!

Darnit, Josh! I was counting on you to come back with some scientific results!
Okay, my weekend mission is to find a tootsie roll pop and finally get the answers to exactly how many licks it takes!
I formed Leftover Egg Roll, now I gotta do this too…(sigh) My job is never done.

So……I’m STILL marveling over this….I was at the local pawn shop….and….for those of you into retro video games, namely super duper rare NES games…does Tengen version of Tetris ring a bell???

OMG!!!!!!!! I found one today for 3 DOLLARS! Holy fuck! this bad boy is right now on amazon for 50 to 75 bucks…it could fetch more, depending on the person who wants it badly enough.

I can’t determine if making this martini was a good idea or not. It tastes good, but it’s making me crocked, and I didn’t want to be crocked so much as just slightly tingly. WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

Hey Mattster. Just stay lucid enough to post. That way we can all enjoy the hilarity. Better yet, get smashed and do a VLOG.

Mmmm…martini. I just had a couple of vodka and tonics. I’m in the happy place.

Any Smash Bros addicts, I’m going online in 10 mins and I’d like to kick your ass.

Oh guess what. My one friend is renting a cabin out in the woods and inviting a bunch of people to stay overnight and get fucking trashed. Jealous much?

I’m already putting thoughts into a protection pack to make sure that in the event of a zombie attack or killing spree, I’ll be the one person that gets to live.

Congrats on ten years! That’s mighty impressive

Also, great use of the semi colon here: “YOU ARE LYING; we both know it.” Way to revive an underused punctuation mark.

I have to admit, even though that Freddy album is pretty atrocious I do kind of like the song Don’t Sleep. It sounds like every song ever used during a passionate sex scene in any random 80’s movie.

Hey, if it does happen I’ll buy the rights for the movie.
I can see it now “Mystie, Zombie Destroyer”
The cover, You, clad in pink standing over a pile of the un-dead,
Something I’d like to see.

Firstly, Mandy I totally played that game multiple times, and it was the only copy of tetris that the game rental place in my old neighborhood ever had when i was a child. Also, I am very jealous of all of you “brawlers” and totally feel left out.

And Mystie’s comment about a cabin in the woods reminded me of an article matt wrote (possibly last summer) about going to a cabin with his friends where there has been an old bottle of crystal clear pepsi has been there since its inception. Anywho, Matt, are you ever returning to that cabin?

Oh and before I forget! I was at my mom and grandmas yesterday… I found this plastic Transformers cup from 1986 0r 87. Decent condition,with Optimus prime on the front of it. And some glass Garfield mugs from Mcdonalds circa 1990 I think.

And MT DEW Voltage gets my vote for new dew. I love it. Just tried it today, and its like a melted carbonated, blue razzberry slurpee

Mt. Dew Voltage tastes like the long needed return of Blue Pepsi but I’ve also come to like the Supernova flavor but I know that there can only be one….

For those of you feeling left out of the Super Smash Bros goodness, I’m feeling the need to shoot things on Halo 3 - gamer tag is jjwspider.

Ertl! They made the Thomas the Tank Engine toys that I had way back when…and still have.

I always seem to be a day late and a dollar short when XE updates, but for those TMBG fans above, check the youtube linky in my name…Jonathan Coulton (the zombie lovin’ Portal-writin’ singer) has just started performing TMBG’s “Birdhouse in your Soul” with his buddies Paul and Storm. Looks like this video from last night was the very first time they’ve performed it.
As Paul notes, “Happy, happy geeks”

Sweet holy jebus! Socket Poppers! I had 100% forgotten about those mother fuckers until right now. I had the football player and the monster fly, loved em. And odd side note, not two days ago I was in the grocery store and saw The Quest Doritos, looking over the package my first thought was “Bet this winds up on XE”, seriously.

McD’s has commercials for the Kung Fu Panda Happy Meal toys where the kids are using chopsticks for their McNuggets, but I don’t think they’re actually giving them out, which is a total missed opportunity.
Happy Friday everybody! Ima get my drink on with some of you; I went to BevMo and got vanilla Grey Goose and black cherry Cruzan, and I’ve got all kinds of mixers so I shall play mad scientist. Cheers!

Matt,you NEED to track down an album by R. Cade and the Video Victims. I forget what the record’s called,but I can’t imagine they made more than one. It’s pretty much a poor man’s Buckner and Garcia,and only meant as a novelty,but I’ll be damned if I don’t enjoy those songs as much or more than real music. Anyway,the MP3’s are out there if you look around.

If we’re going to be talking about music,does anyone on here like Depeche Mode?

Didn’t Ertl do the original American versions of the Dragon Ball action figures?

And for the person who asked why Jason doesn’t have a song about him,there is one. It’s called “The Man Behind The Mask” by Alice Cooper.
Someone hasn’t been paying attention to the X-E Halloween jukebox!!!

My life wouldn’t be the same without X-E…it makes holidays that much more enjoyable!

Well, my brother paid me a visit tonight. He got REALLY drunk , caused a huge mess, ate everything in sight (such as rice krispie treats mixed with chili spaghettie, seriously) , puked all over the toilet and finally passed out in the middle of the livin room. Wonderful

This is quite an update, we got weird junk food, cool forgotten toys, and a cool novelty album in one post!

BTW Matt, if you think the music you listen to is weird, I’m listening to mcchris.com right now!

Reading this most recent post a single tear drop has fallen from my eye and a part of my soul has died!
Matt i have been a devoted fan sinse 2004 and have every so often left comment.
X-entertainment is the reason i say”well roast my toast” when things are not going according to my plans!
we are all getting a little older..prioritys change. but you are an incredible creative writer and when you get the chance to post it is always much enjoyed!

It’ll just be on a “when he feels like it” basis. Which, seems about right. After all, this site is supposed to be fun for him as well as us.

Annette: Well, you all knew somebody had to say this, and forgive me if somebody beat me to it in a previous thread:

Dude, I soooo beat you to that like a gazillion posts ago right here on this very thread. Keep up, lady!

Jedoc and All You Other Math-y People, So, what do you make of Modulok? Discuss.

velouria_78, Kudos to you. You get extra, extra bonus points for referencing “Big Bad Wolf.”

Kid Nicky, I’m a pretty big Depeche Mode fan. I got to see them a few years ago, and play them on my radio show all the time.

Speaking of guilty pleasure soundtracks, when the TMNT soundtrack first came out I used to listen to it all the time. (Of course, I was like 12 at the time), and I STILL listen to both 1989 Batman
soundtracks all the time. It’s only my favorite movie ever.

I can write this, because none of you will ever meet me in person: I legitimately love the theme song to Pokemon Johto, and listen to the full-length album version at least once a day. It gives me the inspiration to continue my quest to be a Pokemon master!

Oh yeah,the DJD radio show I always mean to listen to,but never do. One of these days I swear I’ll catch it.
Also I can’t believe I forgot this last night,but MANDY HOLY SHIT TENGEN TETRIS!!!!
Seriously,that’s awesome.

Goddamn, how did I miss out on Socket Poppers? I guess they mustn’t have seen distribution in Australia, cos that is something I would’ve been all over as a kid (and I think I may just have to track some down as a 22 year old). The closest thing I ever had to that was Modulok, or the Jurassic Park Wayne Knight figure, which had removable Dino-Damage arms.

And double goddamn, I’m missing out on Mountain Dew Doritos? First Mac n Cheese crackers, now this. I can’t believe I have to wait until June 27th to return to the States.

Wow, that Freddy album is the greatest thing since…I don’t know what. I only wish that they would have made more “Freddy-esque” lyrics, like:
“When you want to/be disemboweled/When you need to develop/five extra smiles/then all that you/really have to do/is dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam.”
Or not.
Sam

SOCKET POPPERS! See, now this is why I visit this site. I’ve been trying to remember the name of that line for years (much like I did with Snailiens) and now I finally have a reference point for future wasteful adventures on eBay. Thank you, Matt.

First of all, Matt, glad to see you up and running. I thought you might have gone on vacation.

Second, I do remember those Socket Poppers. We never had them, but I remember a lot of guys in grade school were particularly crazy about them. Now they could pull apart their action figures without their parents and siblings throwing fifteen different fits!

And amazingly enough, considering how many bags of Doritos I sell at the grocery store where I work on a given day, I have yet to see a bag of Mountain Dew-flavored “Quest” Doritos. I hope this comes out better than the cheeseburger-flavored “mystery flavor” promotion Doritos did last year.

Cai I found it! I present to you my Halloween CD, Slumber Party Massacre 37!
1. Welcome to My Nightmare - Alice Cooper
2. Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group
3. Nature Trail to Hell - “Weird Al” Yankovic
4. Thriller - Michael Jackson
5. Some bit from SNL of Jimmy Fallon doing Halloween songs
6. The Time Warp - The Rocky Horror Picture Show
7. The Legend of Wooly Swamp - The Charlie Daniels Band
8. Halloween - Jerry Seinfeld
9. Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon (Adam Sandler does a pretty good version, too, if you can find it)
10. Feed My Frankenstein - Alice Cooper
11. Slime Creatures From Outer Space - “Weird Al” Yankovic
12. Monster Mash - Bobby “Boris” Pickett
13. Ghostbusters - Ray Parker, Jr.
14. The Simpsons Halloween Special End Credits Theme (”The Addams Family” Version) - from the episode “Treehouse of Horror IV

earthwormgoddess and DJ D, you mentioning Simpsons Sings the Blues and the 1989 Batman soundtrack made me remember…I used to make “mix tapes” (really just super long medleys of songs I dug at the time)…anyway, I remember using Springfield Soul Stew (with all the dialogue removed, just one long instrumental[which I was very proud of]) and also LOTS of clips from Batdance…I wish I could find those tapes…

DJ D: Glad I’m not the only one who still pulls out the old 1989 Batman soundtrack from time to time. In fact, my old cheerleading team performed “The Bat Dance” by Prince at a pep rally in ‘93. It kicked ass, truly. God, I’m old.

I couldn’t make all the way through any of the Freddy songs

Though I will admit to owning the Howard the Duck soundtrack on cassette and listening to it pretty often

Teddy Ray: heeeeyyyy thanks!

That’s awesome, some really great ideas in there, partic Alice Cooper - how could I forget??
Mad props, yo!

Okay, I’m reading every post to see if someone made this comparison yet. But the Mountain Dew Doritos taste like Trix cereal. I thought it was Fruit Loops at first, then Trix clicked better. I have too much freetime.

omfg… the freddy album had me hooked in 18 seconds and i swear i’m not just putting you on.

I want that Vampire Socket Popper, and you’re right, Matt. I don’t remember these guys at all.

Those chips are making me sick just thinking about them. I fucking LOVE Mountain Dew, but the thought of… something akin to Dew Dust being sprinkled upon tortilla chips - Holy God, WHY!?

Matt, in my opinion, you have a better taste in music than my boss does. Oh God, some of the shit he listens to is absolutely unbearable. Him and I get along, we like tons of the same stuff, but when it comes to music, he makes me shake my head in disbelief.

the playlist isn’t working. Mind if you fix it so I can hear freddy tear a near one with his lyrical greatness!

Mountain Dew flavored doritos? That definetly must be or have been a test market thing.

Speaking of which, there are 3 new Mtn. Dews out for some new ad campaign. You may want to keep a supply so in a year or two we can get a retro feature on em.

“Do the Freddy” is without a doubt the worst song I’ve ever heard. Just horrible…. truly.

You know, years ago I discovered one of my favourite songs to this day. New Order - Touched by the Hand of God. That was from you! =)

I too, have been legitimately enjoying the Freddy Album. While the album is a novelty, the song “Don’t Sleep” is brilliant even by serious music standards IMO. It’s ambient and rockin’.

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