01/01/2004 Entry: "X-E's latest design is active!"

Ahhhh, we're finally finished. The new design is up and active, and there's a couple of changes to take note of...

It's a pretty massive change, actually. X-E has been using the small rectangle picture links since it began in 2000, and while it's always hard to let go of something as touching and meaningful as a 1.5" rectangular jpg containing snapshots that can rarely be seen, I thought it was time for a change. Article links now use slightly larger pics, title bars, and are alloted more space for me to explain what's inside. I'm sure some of you might be a little "ehhh" on the switch, but I definitely think it's for the best. There's a couple of things left to tweak, but be sure to scroll around the right side of the page -- I added a few new commercial downloads that haven't been made available on the site before. (or anywhere else online, most likely) I tried to cut some of the unnecessary gaga near the middle of the page, so now you just got a straight list of links and won't have to play Pong with your eyeballs to find out what's new. Enjoy.

Course, the driving reason behind this was to create an environment that's more conductive to frequent updating. I think that's been accomplished. Over the next few weeks, we'll see if I'm right!

Oh, and HAPPY FRIGGIN' NEW YEAR! We sat at home like losers till midnight, spending the holiday with Dick Clark and his ten trillion terrible skits with poorly rendered M&M's characters. We ended up going out at around 2 AM, partying for like 45 minutes, and waking up in an apartment that wasn't our own. I was groggy and didn't realize it from our surroundings, but the fact that our blankets didn't reek of smoke told differently.

PS -- if you weren't able to dL the commercial in the Turtles Cereal article, it should work now.

Now, what the hell is this: http://www.973-eht-namuh-973.com

????

Chestnuts roasted by Matt (#2?) @ 01/02/2004 12:39 AM EST

I can't see it. Maybe it's because I'm at work & our network is terrible. :(

Chestnuts roasted by Mike @ 01/02/2004 12:40 AM EST

Mike, speaking not being able to see something, what happened to your advent? I was looking forward to the rest and now I can't find it.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt (#2?) @ 01/02/2004 12:42 AM EST

I found out the problem. Matt, your new index page is index.html, & the Christmas one is called index.htm ...so it still loads by default on my computer, & probably a ton of others. You might want to get rid of it or rename it or something.

As for the Christmas project formerly known as the advent calendar, work got in the way. A lot. So I couldn't finish in time. So I improvised.

http://www.poprocksandcoke.com/christmas/

Starting this coming week I'm going to shoot for one update a week for now, to see how I can handle it.

Chestnuts roasted by Mike @ 01/02/2004 12:51 AM EST

Eh, it's odd, like I'm only looking at links to the mega-kamehameha-stupendous articles and features like the Thanksgiving Parade reviews or the Advent Calendar and not the normal articles, but I'm sure that I'll get used to it soon enough. :)

Anyhow, today, the Scream channel in Canada, which mainly shows horror movies, was showing apocalyptic end of the world pictures for New Year's, and one of the films was 1989's Miracle Mile, about events that transpire in Los Angeles when a guy played by Anthony Edwards picks up a ringing pay phone and gets a "wrong number" guy from a missile silo whom, thinking he's talking to his father and not some random guy, tells the guy that the missiles will be launching in an hour. I've seen bits and pieces of Miracle Mile, but never bothered to watch all of the way through. Anyhow, I thought Anthony Edwards' girlfriend seemed familiar but couldn't quite place it, until I was looking up reviews. Holy crap! It's Mare Winningham, the "star" of the Playmobile Advent Calendar... well, at least you pretend she is the star.

Anyhow, Happy New Year to Matt and everyone.

Chestnuts roasted by Steve Brandon @ 01/02/2004 12:53 AM EST

Yeah, Happy New Year, Guys. Now I just get used to writing 2004. Writing checks will be hell.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 01/02/2004 12:56 AM EST

I must say, I likes the new look. Pacman is quite awesome, but I gotta agree that the icons look a bit cluttered. Maybe if they were a bit smaller? But I'm just knit-picking... I guess I just miss Gizmo.

Chestnuts roasted by James F.W. @ 01/02/2004 12:58 AM EST

The new commercials were great. The Autobot three-wheeler ad is something I've been dying to see ever since the old review. Ditto for Pac-Cereal.

Chestnuts roasted by Jag @ 01/02/2004 01:27 AM EST

Wow, I *really* like this one, even better than the X-Mas version. It's just craziness from top to bottom. Good luck with the print column.

Chestnuts roasted by Mallow @ 01/02/2004 01:30 AM EST

"Now, what the hell is this: http://www.973-eht-namuh-973.com";

What the hell??! Thats some crazy ass whack randomness!! Freaking weird!!!!

Chestnuts roasted by heeloyd @ 01/02/2004 01:52 AM EST

Matt, whatever you do, please please please keep the paper homemade Krang up at the top; I grin whenever I see it. That thing is awesome.

Chestnuts roasted by Gabbylicious @ 01/02/2004 02:20 AM EST

The new design is different, but I'm pretty sure I like it.

Now, that http://www.973-eht-namuh-973.com reminds me of http://www.superbad.com for some reason, just a whole lot creepier.

Chestnuts roasted by Andrew @ 01/02/2004 03:35 AM EST

love the new look totally awesome

Chestnuts roasted by the corinthian @ 01/02/2004 05:27 AM EST

"Type in any word: I guarantee you, you'll find somethin."

not for 'shingle'.

Chestnuts roasted by akbarium @ 01/02/2004 09:51 AM EST

This is the best look X-E's had yet. The new design rocks in an extreme manner.

Chestnuts roasted by Rood @ 01/02/2004 02:10 PM EST

I like the new design as well, nice and clean. But the first person was right about how the section links on the top of the page look clustered.

Chestnuts roasted by Big Will @ 01/02/2004 02:20 PM EST

The new look is kinda fancy.

Love having Bumblebee up at the top too.

Its appropriate, since its the 20th Anniversary of the Transformers!

Chestnuts roasted by Bloodcat @ 01/02/2004 04:54 PM EST

Hey this new design is Pac-Mantacular!

Change that part that says "we ended up going out yadda yadda..." to "we ended up doing it."

Chestnuts roasted by shemgokun @ 01/02/2004 05:55 PM EST

Hm, not sure if this has been mentioned before, but has anyone been having problems getting sound in some of the recent commercial downloads? During the Xmas countdown it seemed like I couldn't get every third commercial to play right, but most were okay... I wouldn't have mentioned it, but now I can't get the TMNT sound to play and that bloody sucks. :( Are you encoding some files differently, Matt?

Oh, and love the new site design, Matt. Kudos!

Chestnuts roasted by Wes @ 01/02/2004 06:01 PM EST

Bumblebee at the top of the page? I LIKE YOU AS A FRIEND!!!! (My favorite Transformer, the Bee be.)
Also took in the Ninja Turtles ad. As much as I love Rice Chex (now owned by General Mills, so between these and Cherrios they're making most of my breakfast), I bought Spider-Man cereal thinking it would be the same but as a snacking cereal, thus leaving the Chex for breakfast. I think I'll stick with Cookie Crisp for snack time.

Chestnuts roasted by ShadowWing the Technorganic Autobot @ 01/02/2004 06:13 PM EST

Hey Matt, love the new look, it certainly is a big leap, I'm not much for the new X-E logo, maybe it's just the color, never been a big fan of yellow... Other than that, good work and I look forward to the next article

Chestnuts roasted by The Dude @ 01/02/2004 07:14 PM EST

My god...it's blinding! My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!

:)

Seriously, I like the new design. Fits the site almost perfectly.

Chestnuts roasted by Paul @ 01/02/2004 08:18 PM EST

This new design totally rocks. Love the Pac-Man and Ninja Turtles elements of it. It'll be a good design until the next major holiday in which you'll perhaps make a new design.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 01/02/2004 08:52 PM EST

Other than I agree about the icons on top looking a tad cluttered, the site looks great! I love the new colors, and the "Trapper Keeper" Blog is inspired. : 0 )

I did the same thing all of you did for New Year's Eve - stayed home and invited a friend over. We ate home-made pizza and watched one of my tapes of "Perfect Strangers" episodes. And yes, we remembered where we were when the clock turned to 2004. The worst we drank was sparkling grape juice (and I consumed most of it).

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 01/02/2004 10:37 PM EST

I got to agree with Gabbylicious on the paper Krang. Seeing it lifts my spirits. I had an extremely excited and dorky reaction the first time I saw it up there.

Chestnuts roasted by Rood @ 01/02/2004 11:39 PM EST

happy new year! matt, you are amazing.

Chestnuts roasted by candice @ 01/03/2004 01:18 AM EST

STINKOR on the main page baby!!
That shit is the shit yo.

Chestnuts roasted by Kasey @ 01/03/2004 01:31 AM EST

Cool, classic Nintendo trifecta! Mario, Zelda, Metroid... retro, baby. Looks cool.

Chestnuts roasted by Freezair @ 01/03/2004 03:01 AM EST

Holy Crap!!! Why didn't *I* demand a transformers power cycle from my parents?!? I just had a sucker non-transforming cycle that i think was orange and blue...

Fantastic redesign. I get errors when trying to download the "peanut butter boppers" commercial, though, which is unfortunate because i have vivid memories of the product -- not consuming it, but seeing it on tv...

Chestnuts roasted by Dystopika @ 01/03/2004 01:11 PM EST

love it, too bad it doesn't work with mozilla...like usual.

Chestnuts roasted by jordan @ 01/03/2004 01:42 PM EST

Ditto with the New Years eve thing. I sat here with the girlfriend and watched Finding Nemo and Chasing Amy untill finally I flipped on the TV to find the antichrist(aka Ryan Secrest) welcoming me into the new year. Had it not been for the female, I would've broke down and cried :-(

Chestnuts roasted by Diabetic Dinosaur @ 01/03/2004 11:47 PM EST

Loved the finale of the Playmobil Advent Calendar! Nice to see Mare get her due after what she did to Mista Snowman! >:) (heh heh, and I'm glad everyone liked my song!) Love the new layout too!

This has been bothering me for quite some time, but I seem to remember this cartoon which was basically a Captain N rip-off. It starred the tomato from "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" video game, a basketball player (from some Basketball video game possibly) who was always twirling his basketball on the end of his finger, the knight from Wizards and Warriors, and a mafia-boss like villain named Mr. Big (forget what game he's from). I'm racking my brain trying to figure out the name of this show, if it ever existed. Anyone remember this show? Or was I imagining things? :)

Chestnuts roasted by The Dragon @ 01/04/2004 10:45 AM EST

Oh...my...god...The new design looks great! Everything just clicks, and the menu's awesome for long-time readers.

Keep it like this for a while!

Chestnuts roasted by Behonkiss @ 01/04/2004 03:57 PM EST

The Dragon, if your still reading this far, the show you're talking about is "Video Power". The first season had an animated segment, "The Power Team", which was Captain N in reverse. (Game heroes come to our world and bring their game world ways with them, with the hero being a teen, namely an animated version of Power's host.)

The tomato was Kwirk, from the Game Boy game of the same name. Everyone else is an NES game (and all owned by Acclaim, who was the top sponsor of Video Power--the toon segment even refered to Johnny Arcade as "Master of the Game", the company tagline of the time.) Tyrome the basketball player is from "Arch Rivals", Max Steel and Mr. Big (and his goons) are from NARC, Kuros and the occasionally visiting Malkil are from Wizards and Warriors (a lame game IMO compared to what the box and show made it out to be), and Bigfoot was from Bigfoot.

This was all replaced in season 2 when Video Power had a few game tips before jumping into the game show format.

Chestnuts roasted by ShadowWing The Technorganic Autobot @ 01/04/2004 10:34 PM EST

The guy's name was Max Force, not Max Steel.

Here's the only page I could find with information on the Power Team cartoon.

http://www.nesplayer.com/television/vidpower_files/power.htm

Chestnuts roasted by Mike @ 01/05/2004 02:52 PM EST

Force. OK, never played NARC, so I got him confused with the cartoon character. That or all the Robo Force Max Steel mentions here.

Chestnuts roasted by ShadowWing the Technorganic Autobot @ 01/10/2004 03:15 PM EST

Re the 'eht namuh' site, it is well weird but the paintings are something els arnt they. The painter if i remember rightly is David Denison a seriousley gifted bearded weirdo for surrealism. Check them out!

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