Wolf Gnards
Nerding Pop Culture
Nerding Pop Culture
Apr 14th
Brad Neely needs to do songs about every president...
Not nearly as good as Brad Neely's George Washington song, but JFK grows on you. He was a hyper-sympathetic telepathic machine after all.
The reason I enjoy JFK though is because its a little rarer. While, George Washington is much more popular, I like JFK because Brad Neely actually makes money off of JFK. Brad lost the rights to George Washington when he entered it in the Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival. It's like Beavis & Butthead, Mike Judge didn't make a cent on that, but he made a ton of dough off of King of the Hill. When King of the Hill does well, I feel good for Judge because he deserved it from Beavis & Butthead. I weird sort of logic, I know.
What's even weirder is Brad Neely doesn't make anything from JFK being on this site or Youtube at large. So, thing I like about this is that Brad needs to be paid for this, and I am absolutely not paying for it! I've become the man, Brad, and I'm cutting you out. However, if you'd like a little something, perhaps we can work something out.
Apr 12th
A day late and saving roll short, but Dungeons & Dragons co-creator, Dave Arneson passed away April 10, 2009, after a 2 year battle with cancer. Just a year ago, Gary Gygax, D & D's other co-creator, passed away March 4, 2008. I haven't played D & D since junior high, but it's still sort of a sad occasion. But perhaps all is well and Gygax and Arneson is rolling ability scores for that big character sheet in the sky.
Dave Arneson's interest in gaming started with wargames like Avalon Hill's Gettysburg. Arneson and Gygax formed a friendship through a shared interest in sailing ship and navel games. These pen and paper games would eventually evolve into Chainmail, then Blackmoor, and finally Dungeons and Dragons. Arenson kept more of a low profile than the more up front Gygax.
Gary Gygax was known as the father of the tabletop role-playing game, and in turn the grandfather of all RPG's. Gygax helped develop all the role playing conventions that have become standard—hit points, character classes, and leveling up. Dungeons & Dragons and later Advanced Dungeons & Dragons would go on to influence video games like Final Fantasy and Fallout. Gygax first started taking part in wargaming clubs at various comic book conventions in the 1960's known for his Hawaiian shirts and 20-sided dice. By 1973, Gary Gygax was well established in the gaming community and co-founded the company TSR with the help of Dave Arenson, the eventual makers of D & D.
Those unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons may best know Gary Gygax by his appearance on Futurama. He was part of Al Gore's Vice Presidential Action Rangers, along with Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, and Deep Blue.
I'll remember them for filling those pre-teen days before I could even fathom taking to girls without a character sheet in my hands. And even though a did learn to talk to girls (albeit only a small bit), I'll always have a warm spot for good ol' pen and paper role playing games. Perhaps Gygax said it best himself, “I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”
Gygax died from a heart attack after many years of struggling with a heart condition. He was survived by 6 children. Arenson lost a long battle with cancer and is survived by his daughter and two grandchildren.
Apr 10th
I would totally play Close Range:
Hot New Video Game Consists Solely Of Shooting People Point-Blank In The Face
I'm actually not very good at 1st person shooters. I usually just end up running around in circles and shooting my friends by mistake. So, I'm probably not the person you want in a gun fight, video or otherwise. A point blank video game is probably a little more my speed.
Apr 8th
When I first saw Tegan & Sara, I thought to myself, "I think I have a crush on them." Then I thought, "And I think they might be lesbians." As it turned out the indie pop rockers do happen to be lesbians, but it matters not to my crush--they're cute no matter what their sexual preference may be.
Dee Dee Supreme tries to cheer me up sometimes by saying, "I totally think only one of them is a lezzy lez and the other is just pretending for the sake of the act." But a nerd crush isn't about reciprocal love! I have as much of a chance with Tegan or Sara as I do with Natalie Portman and Tina Fey. It's the dream that counts not my sad sack reality (although, my reality does include the ever awesome Dee Dee who tries to set me up with cute lesbians... how many nerds can say they have a girl like that).
But I digress. Tegan and Sara are not the typical nerd crush... they're indie, they're musicians, and it looks like they're not very good at math. However, what they lack in nerd they make up for in dork. Tegan & Sara Quin are twins. Dork. They mostly likely speak of twin language. Tegan has a ptosis in her left eye. Dork. A ptosis is also known as Dork eye or Popeye. Tegan & Sara are Canadian. Dork.
They also rock the mullet as well as the mic. I can see where straight men might not be attracted to them, their might just a little too much gym teacher intimidation going on. But I really do think they make the mullet look good. And, yes, I am hypnotized whenever Roadhouse is on the television, but mullets are hard to pull off and it takes a super cute dork to do it. I'm also a big fan of their sound (They rock the moog--the dorkiest of synthesizers), and sometimes I like to imagine that they're writing songs for my female lesbian doppelganger, but perhaps I've shared too much.
Your mulletless dork-eyed blogger,
J. Douglas Musashi
Apr 6th
I can't say that I had any high hopes for Dragonball: Evolution, but I did hope it would be somewhat watchable. The problem is that running around in an orange jumpsuit is kind of gay. And I hate using gay in such a context, but the trailer for Dragonball: Evolution can only be called gay. And flaming balls from his fingertips are also gay. The further problem the studio had though was that if they don't put Goku in an orange jumpsuit with flaming balls from his fingertips than Fanboys like myself are going to get all snarky.
My problem is that Goku just doesn't seem like Goku. He's link a whinny teenager. Goku has no angst, he just kickass. I feel like he's going to talk about his feelings and stand around on a boat (an easy listening tune somewhere in the background). The idea of a live action DBZ movie is irresistible, the actuality just looks dreadful. The only way to do a live action Dragonball movie is to not do it all.
Apr 4th
Link: http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/three-seashells/
There are many mysteries in the future, the most bizarre of which just might be: How will we wipe our asses? How will our children's children's children take care of business? A disintegration ray? Some sort of hover conversion system? Or perhaps the 3 seashells? The one thing everyone wanted to know from Demolition Man was just how the three seashells worked.
When I was kid I imagined their must have been some sort of light system like Simon. How the wipes you, I have no idea, but that's the best my mind could come up with. Fortunately, the writers of Demolition Man had far greater dreams.
In a 2006, interview with Ain't It Cool, Sly Stallone revealed what he was told by Demolition Man screenwriter Peter Lenkov:
OK, this may be bordering on the grotesque, but the way it was explained to me by the writer is you hold two seashells like chopsticks, pull gently and scrape what’s left with the third.
But for those of you that need a more visual representation of the wonders of toilet seashells, I-Mockery has presented a handy dandy diagram: