SORRY DRIPPY GHOSTS, SHADOWS, AND POLTERGEISTS, YOU ARE OUT OF LUCK (AND DRIPPY)

Shit's biased against incorporeal creatures.

JAPAN, YOU ARE MY HERO

I'm a big fat unabashed lover of Japanese culture, its cinema legends, samurai related history, tasty teas, crazy precise tank model kits, Nintendo stuff, giant monsters, and the just plain wonderful weirdness that comes out of that island nation.

As such, the wreckage of said nation has sat black with me. I'm certainly not Japanese, know no Japanese folks (natives), have no family in Japan or any other ties to that land. I should by all means not be a fan of Japan given that both my grandfathers spend lots of time dodging kamikaze attacks and type 38 Arisaka rounds.

However, it left me sad to see the videos of destruction and hear tales of people being swept away by walls of water. Then I started seeing images of victims with nothing left after the wave, waiting in orderly lines for a cup of water. Or patiently doling out equal cups of soup. Or taking up only a certain amount of space in the shelters. This adherence to fairness is self-imposed as well.

Cops don't have their hands completely full with jackasses jumping lines and bashing TVs onto puppies. It's astounding. Now they're not superbeings without greed, hate or avarice, I know that. But overall the public has responded in a much more civilized manner to such absolute desolation than, say, just about any group of Americans during the dreaded Black Friday sales. It's inspiring in a way.

Now, couple this devastated nation's plight with a pending nuclear catastrophe. What do you get in the news?

Americans buying every single ounce of fucking potassium iodide they can get their goddamn fucking shit hands on. Because people in LA are wondering how this radioactivity will affect them. Christ. Get over yourself America.

So this week's mood has gone from bleakness, then to respect, and now to anger. Woo. Hoo. I think I miss bad movie night more than ever, as it used to ease these things from my brain.

But, at the end of the day, Japan, you are still my hero. (But I think you already knew that.)

THERE'S SOME SORT OF DRONING BACKGROUND NOISE IN MY HEAD or GIGA PUDDI

Are you having a day filled with deep, meaningful thoughts? Currently deep in concentration, attempting PUDDI PUDDI!!! to solve some riddle or puzzle. Or perhaps PUDDI PUDDI!!! you are enjoying a complex piece PUDDI PUDDI!!! of literature PUDDI PUDDI!!! and totally getting what the author intended. You could PUDDI PUDDI!!! even bePUDDI PUDDI!!! contemplating a well thought out film PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! you recently saw.

Well, all that ends now. PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! PUDDI PUDDI!!! GIGA PUDDI!!!

P.S. Imagine JPS in this video and replace custard with flan. Only makes it better.

MY MIND JUST WENT 'PAFF' or BALROGS NEED AIRLINE MILES TOO

Lately I've been passing the time spent painting stupid little models listening to various podcasts. One of which is a college lecture podast on Tolkien's works. As such, I've learned a thing or two. Mainly that I've made an incorrect assumption my entire life. Never thought twice about it. I can take some solace in the fact that this is not entirely all my fault. Essentially, 99% of the artwork and imagery associated with the beastie known as a Balrog is incorrect.

Balrogs don't have fucking wings.

Turns out it's all a misconstrued simile. When the Balrog shows up in Moria, the flame and shadow it exudes is a representation of its power. A shadowy form is wreathed within the flame and darkness like a cloak of sorts. The line:

"His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow
about it reached out like two vast wings."

- isn't a hard description. It's a simile. The shadow spreads out, but never became solid, real deal wings. The phenomena stands in juxtaposition to the light Gandalf emits. Ol' G-dogg might have ended up with wings as well if Tolkien had worded it as such! Again:

“It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and suddenly
it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall”

Same deal, just spreading out some more. But still no wings as such. Just the Balrog flexing its power. Besides, the Balrog friggin' fell off the bridge when Gandalf busted it - and was scared. When it took the plunge it let out: “a terrible cry,”.

Now I need to go off and realign my brain. I guess I should have trusted the Ted Naismith depictions all along...

8 BIT GODS AND MOUTHBREATHING MILLENNIALS

Castlevania. Level 5. Stage 15. Grim Reaper.

Oh man. I've spent a buncha of time with a buncha different Castlevania titles and this stage + boss combo still haunts me. The image above is likely a ROM capture with a game save feature enabled (save whenever, whereever you want). Just way too many hearts, full life, and III Holy Water. Yeah, no.

The stage leading up to the Grim Reaper fight is pretty rough. Way too many erratic little Igor bastards jumping around and pain in the ass regenerate-o red skeletons. Though the stage is loaded with secret hidden treasures and a rare 1up, so it's point heavy. But, points are secondary to survival here. Once you manage to survive the level and meet the boss, often beat to shit, it gets worse. Sure, it's a breeze if you've made it this far with Holy Water and II or III throw, since there's a one hit glitch that pins the undead bastard in place while he burns. But, that's pretty rare stuff and you need a pile of Hearts to fuel it.

Generally you make it there with a boomerang and a few Hearts. And even with the super useful boomerang, the Grim Reaper is a mafucker. So much so that if you do kill him, his animated scythes still remain and continue to do damage until the magic glow ball finally appears to end the level. Which has happened several times. The high of victory coupled with the horror of defeat, seconds later, is too much to bear. You basically go tin there and hoped he'd fall into a bouncy pattern on one side of the screen so that his accursed scythes would appear on the other.

Castlevania is a game of pixel precision and the Grim Reaper hucks so much crap at you from weird angles, it makes for an unpredictable maze of doom. If you fall to the floor below, you're done. Get hit and bounce in a bad direction - done. Poorly timed jump - done. I break into a sweat thinking about battling the guy. But there are those who would walk among us mortals as 8 bit Gods. The video link above is one example. Initial whip form. No sub weapon. No damage taken. Grim Reaper - toast. Amazing.

Then, there's the sloppy bastard nerds who need to get the fuck off the internet and stop clogging it with their sticky, hair covered, thumb ridden, poorly quoted pop culture video content.

This particular special person has 4 videos, totaling about 35 minutes of some of the worst Castlevania skills I've ever seen - complete with mouth-breathin' bad nerd commentary. I've linked out to one choice hunk of terrible gameplay above. It also contains piles of lovely evidence that nerd culture needs to fucking die already. It's been glommed onto by the lowest common denominator that I don't even know where to draw the line anymore. This particular videodude makes several boasts about how Castlevania was great "back in the day" (he sounds 17) when he played it and how it was his first game.

Well, I call bullshit. No one who has played Castlevania for any amount of time can wipe the 1st stage of the game from their memory. It's ingrained like breathing. Yet, this toad has difficultly hitting the first fucking candle. See below.

The rest of the damning evidence includes: several incorrect "Whip It" references, 307 jokes about the absurdity of candles producing hearts and treasure, barely completing the 1st stage, fluent verbal use of "Oh Noes" and the "I Can Has Cheesburger?" language, hand eye coordination of a salmon, Medusa sound effects, a plea to not leave negative comments about his voice, and actually uploading these videos for the world to see.

Finally, there's the fact that this shitheel is playing a friggin' ROM (which is fine, not completely hating on that fact) that has a game save feature engaged. Wow. Just, wow. Even with a mega-cheat in place he has no clue. Oh, and he complains about the lag his shitty computer produces while running the damn ROM.

I had a point to this, but lost it in the bile somewhere. Meh.

I'M CONFUSED, IS THIS A GOOD THING? or IT REALLY TAKES 7 WEEKS TO KNOW IF IT'S BEEN BLOWN UP?

THE INTIMIDATOR OF ANNE FRANK or IF ONLY SHE HAD A NUMBER 3 CAR TO ESCAPE THOSE PESKY NAZIS

A few weeks back, three things happened at the supermarket.

1: I was in a supermarket and I hate being in them.
2: Some pizza junkie emulating Stu Spengy's diet jumped the line in front of me.
3: I saw a Time Life cover that seemed a bit off.

Can you spot the poor photo placements/choices and crummy barcode location? I guess I'd like to have been in the room during the selection of said important people while the Indy 500 was on.

BLACK MANTA SCORES AGAIN

Besides being super rad, Black Manta is an accomplished underwater blade master and the main reason I watched Superfriends back in the day. He's a straight up murder factory, an underwater Voorhees if you will. So, I flipped through a recent Brightest Day issue because Manta was on the cover beneath the banner "Aquawar" - and was greeted with a very nice surprise being dealt to my favorite underwater d-bag. How will Aquaman belittle and ride Topo around the ocean now?

SNOW BLOG. NEW LOCATION. NEW VIEW.

The beginning-ish of snowmageddon 2011.

So yeah, it snows in Winter. I get it. I got it. Grew up on the East Coast, I understand it. So how come there are people driving around in snow encrusted cars, attempting to climb steep icy hills mid-storm, hitting snowbanks, and flooring it to get more traction - up here in New England? Seems crazy. They can't all be transplants from sunny Florida. It snows more here, buy some tires that aren't from Wham-O. I get that there are circumstances out of your control. But if you choose to climb a hill, then fail and slide backwards into a snowbank - when all you had to do was take another street to avoid all this - I got no pity.

Snooooooow.

Bile aside, the snow has been steady, near weekly. Seems to be a Wednesday phenomenon as I've made several trips to the comic store during blizzard conditions. (my car roof/windows/doors/hood were completely free of snow and I have decent tires - I practice what I preach) I've enjoyed it quite a bit, minus the constant shoveling. Coming from a region that crushes all snow within 24 hours (due to non- sub 32 temps, not the famously inept DC snow clearance crews) and moving to a land where it piles up and hangs out has been nice. But my perspective may certainly be biased given that my commute consists of a few steps from bed to computer. It snows, I type, I smile. No power outage either thus far. Amazing.

Perty nighttimes descend.

There have been several cycles of storms, each in the 6-12 or 18" range. I get to kick back, burn stuff in a fireplace, all while it snows against the windows soothes my brain. I can totally dig it.

Here's a round up of the snow thus far in images that I captured here and there over the past months. Plus some bonus slip n' slide car action caught from where I sit all day. My creepy peepy perch if you will.

Kids love to shovel.

The stairs are gone.

The plows aren't helping.

Snowcapades begin!

Stop going up the hill!

Reverse is your best bet at this point.

See, kids love to shovel.

I KEN DRAWL!

Looks like that big headed goof who went by lots of nicknames has gotten back into the art seat. So, hit him up at his new blog, leave amusing but useful comments, and hold him to posting more than one set of images a year. BOOKMARK AND HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE! See, he did a portrait of me (yeah I stole the image and made it better!) from my time traveling days. Or have those days never really started/ended? Hard to tell with time travel crap.

Go there now?