NES SEASONAL JOY TRIGGERS

When the holidays near, I can't help but be reminded of the countless joys our stupid NES brought my brother and I. Holidays meant new games. Sweet, sweet new games. Either we got some new ones or friends did. Either way: Many days off in a row + sledding hills freezing over + NES games afterwards = childhood gold.

So, a pile of YTMNDs in the NES vein, for us all.

This one sums up a buncha the childhood memories, all up to a funtastic 8-bit soundtrack.
Can you name all the game screens flashin by? I got 17 written down.

Yay MacGyver!

Zidane's legacy in 8-bit

Bon Jovi + Zelda

Electman was the 3rd robot you had to take out. And a fave.

The blinking screen of doom!

Contra Police.

WOW. REALLY? FRANCE, MAN UP. BOW OUT.

For Murphy.

Ball in.

And down.

Misses 17, through to Henry.

Uh oh, might pass the end line!

I'll use my patented "4th foot" to set this right!

There we are.

Nice set up now.

And cross to 5.

Bing.

Put a head on it.

We're off to Africa! Thanks 4th foot!

Haaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnd...

...bbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll...

.....lllllllsssshhhhiiiiiiiitttttt.

And with that, France boots out the Irish from World Cup dreams. Pretty sad way to get in to the cup. Cheating/BS handball shenanigans in the freakin' wild card series? I don't think Henry cheated on purpose per se, but damn, he shoulda walked into that goal, told his teammates to stop running around like a legit goal happened, handed the ball to the Irish keeper, and said "my bad."

Well, I know who I'll be double cheering against come this Summer. Here's to an early defeat!

BE SURE TO WEAR YOUR HELMET. DEVO WRAP UP.

Here's three stupid videos to close out my Devo week.

First one is all about two things that are on my mind alot. The headgear at the end makes me want to glue a power dome to my helmet. Not thinking of buying a Honda scoot anytime though. They scream 80s at undesirable decibels. But maybe that's rad. So torn.

Kids and whips! Strange that they left out the part from the original video wherein the one cowboy dude grabs a chick and bangs her in the cabin. May have slipped their minds. But, they got the cream part in there.

And lastly, a sad piece of YouTubery. Whip It Unplugged, Trailer Parked, and Ukulele-ized. He just keeeeeeps going. And then freestyles a bit. Then his hat falls off. The batman figures on his wall growl their displeasure.

FLAMES COMING OUT. OF THE SAXOPHOOOOOOOONE!

There was an opener for Devo, some band named JP Inc. Who opens for Devo I asked myself? I did a quick interwebs search and found some spoofy songs and their accompanying weird videos, one of which involved a monster truck. I watched one and figured, oh it'll be some sorta goof band like the Dead Milkmen or something. I was close. Ish.

So one dude comes out on stage. Dressed up as an old fella wearing a suit. He's supposed to be the CEO of a fake TV channel - JP Inc. I get it now, it's basically a stand up act. The giant movie screen above starts playing one of the videos I saw online beforehand. The Jazzbot Xtreme. And the dude simply rips into it, singing along and jamming a foot pedal for when the voice holds the eeeeeeeee in "extreme". His stage act, besides singing along, is to dance along in a weird wooden fashion. He had some sweet moves.

The video ends and he just keeps on keepin' on as the DVD plays through all his goofy videos. The videos are all the stuff of early interwebs funny - ie busted Flash movies. Crappy graphics that float across the screen and stolen internet images. The guy also photoshops his face onto pretty much every character in his fake TV shows and commercials. It was like watching a "live" version of my standard lunchbreak from 8 years back. Amusing stuff, for the most part. It was a fine way to get the crowd ready for Devo.

The songs that stuck in my mind are Jazzbot and Lieutenant Mustard. While listening to Lieutenant Mustard's jam, the backing vocals starting buggin' me as they weren't the JP dude's voice. Someone else. Very familiar stuff. I went home and found it online and had a listen again, then noted the guest vocals were credited to Joe Jack Talcum. The beloved Dead Milkmen singer guy. Double awesome! The JP guy has been doing this for years, so I'm way late here...

BEFORE THE CREAM SITS OUT TOO LONG...

Devo visited DC and the 9:30 Club last night. It was rather sick. Devo is one of the many little subconscious things that came together to shape my personality since I was a wee one. Again, this is solidly Dad's fault, whether he realizes it or not. There's only so many Devo videos you can park a young kid in front of during dinner without some collateral damage setting in. (we'll not get into the issues Rolly Polly Fish Heads brought about)

I bought tickets way early and was looking forward to seeing them in general as well as the chance to see 'em play Freedom Of Choice in its entirety. I had seen live show clips here and there and a full concert from back in the day (1980) and was always impressed with the sound quality and effort they put into their live set.Since it was a "we're gonna play this album" type of show, the set-list was pretty known. And that list has Mr B's Ballroom, Gates Of Steel, and Whip It in it. Some of my favorites. The encore songs would be the only wild card.
Well, despite being a thousand years old and in the biz for 30 years, Devo still does an impressive live performance. And for the encore, they fired up Be Stiff. I was way stoked as that song is so rad. After the encore, the house music came on, the roadies came out, and the lights went up, but the Spuds wouldn't leave, so Devo came back out. They made the roadies plug their shit back in and played Secret Agent Man. I've never seen a band defeat the house music before. Amazing. Below is a clip of Be Stiff some dude shot from the show last night.

So, expect a decent amount of Devo posts this week...

CARD WRAP UP EXPOSITIONANZA

As promised, here's a breakdown of some of the better cards we received for our Hallowedding. Thanks for working up such a varied batch of crafty crap. Enjoy.

Here, GoGo followed the rules and did just as I asked.
One Kettenkrad bustin' through a flaming ring.
Zero for originiality, but A for effort.
Ja! Sick jumps! Wundernice!

Motorcycles and pedophiles. Nice.

Close.

Props to Moms for finding and printing a boot out.

A fab surprise upon opening. Thanks Bruce Foley!

This one made noise when opened.
Anything with Conan can't be bad. Or children crying into a pillow.

This was drawn by a Mom peoples. And hand scripted inside. Best one, easily.

These win the best "Wha?" card as well as the only "Duplicate Card" award.
Quite an accomplishment. Rollercoaster? Whatevs.

Count Jake went the extra mile and did up a neato blood spattered card.
Burned it too. Yay!

TOMORROW IS ONE OF THOSE SPECIAL DAYS

I recall seeing this commercial whilst wasting my life watching yet another Friday The 13th marathon and thinking, "This is the greatest commercial ever". And I still feel that way. Though I coulda watched the entire 1st film, given the amount of time it took me to dig this bastard up. Wrong keywords I guess. Anywho, enjoy.

REASON #349 COLBERT IS A FUNNY DUDE

He does Kurosawa based jokes.
And treats Twitter as a joke as well.