FORCE WAS REQUIRED or SQUEAKY ANGRY WHEEL GETS THE GREASE PLANE

10 Easy steps to plane travel success.

1: The weather. Plane is late due to stupid Florida. Normally, this is no big deal. I understand the miracle of flight and that tornadoes eat planes.

2: Connect-o-horror. Problem arises when it looks like the connecting flight is gonna leave without me due to the delay. I get called up and the nice lady swaps the connector to one that leaves an hour later at the next airport. Super. Sounds great. Better than waiting 6 hours for the next direct flight.

3: Enter the irony. Plane makes good time, excellentin fact. I check the big board when we land for the connecting gate number. Huzzah! It's 4 hours late (estimated) thus making the original "forget waiting 6 hours" plan look like it would have been a better idea.

4: Circumstance goes for the dick punch. A bit deflated, I scan the board some more. Looks like my original connector was delayed as well- and is currently boarding. A quick run down the airport and I spy the 2 folks I was to meet up with and fly out with. But, I don't have a ticket for this plane. I used to, an hour ago, but now I don't. Yay! So I solemnly turn my back on them.

5: Get in line. I head to the flight desk thing as the plane starts to board. As luck would have it, there is a lovely line full of angry people who want to go to Florida. (no joke) My kind of people! Ugh. I just need to get on the plane that is boarding right now to Chicago.

6. Dickery part one. They start announcing stand-by names for the flight I used to be on. I'm 10 deep in the help line, easy. I begin politely asking these Floridians if I could jump ahead to talk to the lady as you see time is important and that plane over there that is boarding is my target flight and yours isn't slated for another hour or so according to the big board. To which I receive several "nah, I was here first" replies and go fuck yourself stares.

7: Alls fair in dickery and dickery. Another name gets the stand-by call. No one replies. The lady calls out for any other stand-by folks. I leap ahead of the stupid Floridians and several stand-by folks shouting "wait, me" or something thick. Timidity and pleasantry will not win the day, I realize.

8: A plea on deaf ears. I go through the story and show my previous itinerary with the flight number. She looks sad and asks why I didn't come up earlier. I reply that the line was full of assholes who wouldn't let medi such a thing She says sorry, but there are no more seats. The only way one is to get one of those 2 people over there in the tunnel to give up their seat. Ugh. Well, at least it was a chance.

9. Southern fuckatality. I give the story and show my proofs to the lucky 2 and that their seat is in fact logically my seat as neither of them were on this plane originally. Fate has messed with my day and is there any chance you could see ti helping me out? The red headed Southern lady bitch wouldn't sell you a smile. She wasn't having any of it. So I turned to the other dude.

10. A human after all. Ignoring the redheaded lady's "ignoring you" gaze. I ask the business dude. He's cool with it and says no problem, go for it. So at the end of a tunnel of dickish humanity, a compassionate soul. Hooray for humans.

Yum. Pretzels and comics. On a plane.

- Acon 2011 fun blog edition.

OFF TO A GREAT START or FLORIDA, GO TO HELL

Awesome times from the get go! I was hoping to start the Acon fun blog edition off with heartwarming photos of old friends well met. But. Yeah. Weather in my favoritest state of our great union, Florida, is affecting flights all over the board. Instead you get a photo of a giant reptile trying to open doors so that it can better eat cats. It does this because all the homeless people it normally eats tend to carry unbreakable plastic Vodka bottles and makes it sick.


So I sit in the airport and wait and watch the flight delay grow and wave goodbye to my connecting flight and the all good times this time drain is gobbling up. Yay! Florida +1!


See, it's a great place to be. Abuela agrees. (also iPhone wants to turn the word Abuela into Whirls reeeeeeeally badly. ) The only positive, is that this here phone bloggy app is working pretty well.

- Acon 2011 fun blog edition.

TURKISH DELIGHT = FACE CRUSHING

Yes, we have brought the cardbord and tempera.

An oldie, but a goodie. Turkish Star Wars! I was cleaning out some old folders and found some choice screen caps I took ages ago from this chunkfest of a film. (If you have time to kill, and I mean kill, then check it out.) It's a fantastic mishmash of spliced footage and sounds from all sortsa movies, bloodthirsty muppets, jumps to defy imagination, tinfoil, frisbees, and almost no dancing. Google away and you can find the full film out there streaming. I, sadly, actually bought a physical DVD bootleg version with real money. It's around here somewheres...

But, the important thing is that there's is a whole lot of face crushing in this puppy. Even children are not safe from the cranium compression!

Well, feed them sandwiches and see if then un-skeleton.

Oh losers, when will you learn? Let the crushing begin.

Childrened!

I know there's a coin behind your eyes damn it!

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.