Songwriters

   I love music. It's my favorite form of entertainment, and artistic expression. I have a pretty varied taste in music ranging from rock, blues and jazz, to classical, flamenco, even a little (very little) hip-hop and just about anything in-between. Today I want to cover some of my favorite songwriters. This list, like all my other lists, is in no particular order.

   Bob Dylan. You can't have a credible songwriter list without putting Dylan on it. He is the best songwriter of our time period, and quite possibly any time period. You would be hard pressed to find any musician or band who wasn't influenced by Bob Dylan, either directly or indirectly.

   Bradley Nowell. Nowell is one of the most underrated songwriters ever. He is a rarity in which nearly every song he wrote was fantastic, with very few, if any, bad songs. I understand that not everyone is into Sublime and their type of music, but if you can look at it from an unbiased, open-minded perspective, I'm sure you would agree with me.

    Jeff Buckley. Not many people even know that this guy ever existed, which is kind of astonishing to me. It may be due to the fact that he only recorded one studio album, Grace. Almost everyone has heard his remake of Hallelujah, in various films and television shows, although they may not even know it. Even though he only produced one album it was ranked by NME as the 23rd greatest album ever.

   Jimi Hendrix. Of course I put Hendrix on this list, he's my favorite guy ever. To refrain from rambling on about Hendrix for too long, I will just say that he is probably the most innovative force in rock music. If you don't believe me then go listen to Machine Gun.

   Neil Young. Another folk/rock musician. From Buffalo Springfield, to Crazy Horse, To CSNY, and his solo work. Neil Young consistently puts out excellent music, not only lyrically, but musically as well. He was even dubbed the "Godfather of Grunge".

   Roger Waters. Waters is the Mad Scientist of rock music. He was the driving force behind the post-Barrett Pink Floyd, with albums like Dark Side of the Moon, and The Wall, and so forth. He draws from his darkness within to create these thematic masterpieces. It's even become a "cool thing" to wear Pink Floyd shirts, even if you know next to nothing about the band. By the way, it's not cool. If you do this, then you are a douche bag.

  Johann Sebastian Bach. Not to be confused with that asshole from that shitty 80's buttrock band. While Bach probably wouldn't be considered innovative. He built upon the pre existing musical structure, and paved the way for a lot of artist to come after him.

   Bob Marley. Marley is usually know (often ignorantly) for his marijuana use. Which is a shame, because he was an amazing songwriter. Marley liked to write songs about peace and love. But he also wrote political songs, and songs about internal conflict and struggle. I find it disturbing that so many people think Eric Clapton wrote "I Shot the Sheriff". He didn't, it was Marley damnit!
 

   Ok, that's most of the ones that I could think of off the top of my head. I left a lot of great ones out, mainly because some were more "group efforts" rather than individual efforts, Led Zeppelin for example. Please refrain from leaving "hey you forgot _____" posts. Instead please let me know some of your own favorite songwriters, group, individual, or otherwise.

Cartoon Characters

   I may be 22 years old, but I still love to watch cartoons. Cartoons tend to run longer than live action shows. One of the reason is because no one changes unless the writers want them too. Babies stay babies, old people don't get older, everyone stays the same age. A good example is Maggie from The Simpson who has been a baby for 21 years. Anyway, I'm going to talk about five of my favorite characters, I'm only going  to pick one per show.

   Bender from Futurama. Everyone loves Bender, but not as much as he loves himself. Bender is an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking gambler". He was built in Mexico as a girder bending unit, but you rarely see him doing any kind of work, outside of drinking booze and partying Bender-style. "Bender is the greatest!" -Bender.

   Goku from the Dragon Ball meta series. A lot of people would argue that Goku is an "Anime" character, but lets be honest anime=cartoon, anime is a sub-genre, Japanese style cartoon. Anyway, Goku is the ultimate hero. He is completely selfless, and only fights to protect those he loves and cares about. He doesn't have much depth, and is fairly two-sided. He is either pissed off and kicking ass, or he is happy and having fun and shoveling food down his throat, there is really no in-between with this guy.  "It would be meaningless to fight with you now. You're too scared and ashamed. Live with the shock. Keep it bottled up inside you. Silently." -Goku

   Butters from South Park. Butters is just hilarious, he is a nerd who always catches the shitty end of the stick, but it never brings down his indomitable spirit. Other characters in the show are always trying to get Butters to do the leg-work in their schemes, which he usually does. He is in constant fear of being grounded by his over-bearing parents, for often trivial things.  "Well, thanks for inviting me into your clique, but I'd rather be a crying little pussy than some faggy Goth kid" -Butters

   Dale Gribble from King of the Hill. Dale is a chain smoking, gun toting, paranoid exterminator/bounty hunter. He spends most of his time drinking in the alley, exterminating bugs, hanging out at the gun club, or locked in his basement mulling over multiple conspiracy theories. He's a fairly naive guy who has been tricked into raising a son who is not his. "I killed eight gophers last year and a purebred Tennesse walking horse that was looking at me funny." -Dale Gribble

   SpongeBob SquarePants from SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob is a naive, innocent, happy-go-lucky guy. He lives in a pineapple beside his best friend Patrick, and Squidward. He finds joy and excitement from the most mundane things, like his job at the Krusty Krab. He rarely has a negative thought about anything or anyone, and it sometimes gets him into trouble. "It was his hat, Mr. Krabs! He was #1!" -SpongeBob


   Ok, that's five characters for you, I may do more in the future but probably not. Feel free to leave a comment on some of  your own favorites.

Nintendo 64 In High Resolution.

   Recently I've discovered the wonderful world of high resolution texture packs for N64 emulation programs. Basically what they do is replace the old crusty texture files with new shiny ones. While I love the crusty old textures, it's nice to see some of my old favorites with a new look. And after talking about some of these games I really want to go back and play through them again and this is a great way to inspire me to do that. While only a handful of games have a decent texture pack, the ones that do look great. Here are some photos to give you an idea of what they look like.

Both Zelda games have been re-textured, but these are all OOT. 

  Here is Mario Kart. The characters themselves haven't been re-textured because of the sicking amount of images for each one.

 

  Mario 64. 

   A different more classic looking Mario.
    

  Paper Mario.

 Banjo-Kazooie.

And probably my favorite looking one Perfect Dark. This one looks fantastic.

   With games that look this fancy, I have to play with my pinky extended. If this is something you would be interested in here is a link to an excellent forum post with a definitive list of each game with each pack. Please don't ask me for installation instructions, that's what Google is for.
 

Louis C.K.

   Today I'm going to talk about some more stand up comedy. Awhile back I talked about Dave Chappelle, and today I want to talk about another one of my favorites. Louis C.K. has a bitter, broken down, and honest presence, which makes for great comedy. Some of the topics he likes to talk about are, marriages and divorces, children, flawed elements of society and human nature. A lot of great comedians are known for their brutal honesty, and Louis is no exception.

  Video is NSFW.

 I recently started watching his show Louie, which aires on FX, and am really enjoying it so far. He also had a show on HBO called Lucky Louie which I haven't been able to check out yet. If you're a fan of stand up comedy, like I am, and haven't watched Louis' stand up, I highly recommend it.

NES-tolgia

  After covering some of my favorite Nintendo 64 games, I thought I would mix it up and do some NES games. Just like the other posts, this is not a best of list, only some of my favorites that I played as a kid, and in no particular order.

   Ice Hockey.  This is the first sports game I ever played, and it was great. It's surprisingly fun and incredibly frustrating. You pick your country, and then choose your team from, fat guys, medium guys, and skinny guys. skinny guys are faster than the others, but fat guys mow down anyone in their path. You can even fight in this game.

   Excitebike. I covered the 64 version already, but this is the superior game, in my opinion. You race on tracks solo, or with other riders, trying to get the fastest time. You have to avoid objects and oil spills, hit ramps and turbo boosters. There is also a track editor where you can design your own tracks.

   Contra. Everyone knows Contra. It's a side scrolling shooter game which changes to a third person view during some parts of the game. The best part about the game was that it had co-op. It's the first co-op game I ever played and still one of the best. The game is so big, even the cheat code is famous.

   The Legend of Zelda. There isn't much I can say about this game that hasn't been said already. It's our introduction into one of the largest game franchises of all time Zelda. You play as Link trying to rescue the princess Zelda, if you haven't played this game and you're a fan of Zelda I recommend giving it a try.


    

   Metroid. Another shooter game. Metroid is just awesome, you run around in this large environment collecting upgrades for your weapons and your power suit. So that you can defeat the Mother Brain. This game is huge for a NES game, I've spent so much time trying to figure out where I was or where I was supposed to be going.
 

 
   Ok thats five NES games, I'm going to try to cover more in the future. Leave me a comment of some of your favorite NES games, and I'll try to put them on the list, or try it out if I haven't played it before.

Def-Step

  I'm feeling brain dead and unmotivated today, so this is going to be a short post. Since everyone seems to have such a boner for Dubstep these days, I'm going to post a remix of one of my favorite bands, Deftones. The song is My Own Summer (Shove It) remixed by Bar 9. It's the first Deftones song I learned to play on guitar many years ago.

Nintendo 3DS Augmented Reality

   I got this from Gekobot's blog, but it's so cool I thought it deserved a repost. It's a demonstration of "Augmented reality" on the 3DS.

 "Augmented reality (AR) is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real-world with a simulated one."- from Wikipedia.


  This got me really excited, I haven't owned a hand-held since the Gameboy Pocket, but this has made me consider upgrading my crusty old GB. Especially with a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake being one of the launch titles.

  If you liked that then please check out Gekobot's blog, he has a lot of cool posts like this one.
http://gekobot.blogspot.com/

Nintendo Nostalgia Part 4

   For part 4 of this series I'm going to do an all racing game edition. Again, this is not a best of list or anything like that, it is only a few of my favorites, and in no particular order.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

   Mario Kart 64. Let me get this game out of the way. We all know Mario Kart, it's Nintendo's racing game. You drive around racing other Nintendo characters, throwing bananas peels, and turtle shells, shrinking people and more. The racing aspect of the game was excellent, but I really like the battle modes. The objective was to hit the other player three times without being hit three times yourself. It was a lot of fun, and I don't see many games with this type of gameplay and it's too bad.

   Lego Racers. Lego Racers is a fairly generic racing game with pretty much the same elements of gameplay as Mario Kart. Except you got to build your own vehicles from Legos. I was a huge Lego fan when I was a kid, and this game was a lot of fun. You could spend a long time just creating cars, which was a blast for me.

   San Francisco Rush 2049. This game was an absolute blast. You race around hitting ramps, and sprout wings to do flips and rolls with. I didn't play the traditional racing mode of this game very much. The best part for me was the stunt mode. You pick up speed and hit ramps trying to do as many flips, spins or rolls as you can without wrecking yourself. It was one of my favorite multiplayer games.

   Wipeout 64. An arcade style racing game similar to most from the genre. There isn't really anything special about this game, you get what you would expect. You fire rockets, lazers, machine guns, plant mines, to stall your opponents and win the races. It's nothing revolutionary or innovative, just a lot of fun.

 Excitebike 64. This was Excitebike's jump to 3D, and offers pretty much everything you would expect it to. You have a Season Mode, lots of tracks and the over the top feel that the original had. And of course you had the Track Editor to create your own tracks. You could even play the original Excitebike, which was probably my favorite part.

  Ok guys that's part four, I hope you enjoyed it. I may have one or two left in me, then I might move onto NES or SNES games.

Zelda the Movie

   I've been thinking about video game movies lately. The first video game movie I remember seeing was Super Mario Bros. and what a glorious piece of shit that was. For the last several years Hollywood has been on a remake kick, with comic books, old T.V. shows, old movies, and of course video games, I guess they just ran out of originality and have to ruin our old favorites.

   When I first heard about the Hitman movie I was pretty excited, until I saw this pussy looking dork they decided would portray Agent 47. But that's an entirely different rant. The same thing with Max Payne, these guys were supposed to be hardened killing machines, not pampered looking, mediocre at best actors. But I digress.

   On to Zelda. Since the Mario movie, Nintendo hasn't been dishing out the rights to Hollywood for their major franchises. And I am very grateful for that. There have been some fan made Zelda movie trailers, which are good for what they are. But not every video game needs to be made into a movie. Zelda isn't about epic battles and thick storylines. It's about engaging gameplay, some puzzle solving, and a fairly generic "rescue the princess" storyline. Some (all) video games just need to stay games. Please don't take a shit all over one of the most loved video game franchises of all time.

   That being said, there is no conformation of, or real plans of a Zelda movie, just a few rumors. This is more of a rant about video game movies in general.

Sublime

   Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite bands, Sublime. Sublime was a three piece reggae/punk band from Long Beach California consisting of Brad Nowell on guitar/vocals, Bud Gaugh on percussion, and Eric Wilson on bass. Sublime mashed together many different genres of music to get their own sound. They sampled a wide variety of artists from Bob Marley to Just-Ice.

   Unfortunately front man Brad Nowell would die before they reached a high level of fame and success. Since his death, Sublime has become one of the most well known bands to come from the 90's. Sublime is a rare band wherein every member is exceptionally talented, instead of being carried by one or two talented musicians. With awesome drum tracks, amazing basslines, great guitar playing and vocals, and brilliant song writing, sublime sticks out from the crowd of grunge and garbage pop from their decade. If you haven't heard them, and you enjoy this kind of music, I highly recommend giving them a listen.

American Movie

   Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite movies, American Movie. It is a documentary film by Chris Smith, that follows Mark Borchardt as he tries to reach the American dream. Mark is middle aged guy, working as a paper boy and cemetery grounds keeper, who only passion is film making. The film documents Mark as he tries to finish his movie Coven, which he had started several years previous, in order to make enough money to make his dream film Northwestern. 

   This film is a masterpiece. The characters are lovable. And the movie is endlessly quotable. With Mike Schank, the burnt out right hand man of Mark. And uncle Bill, the senile old man. This film has you laughing your ass off. While inspiring you to follow your dream. If you haven't seen this film before I highly recommend it.

   Also thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, for those who asked I turned 22.

Birthday Post

   It's my birthday so I'm not going to do a full post. Instead here is a video of a flying scorpion.

Nintendo 64 Nostalgia Part 3

  Ok, this is my third installment of Nintendo 64 Nostalgia. Today I'm going to cover a few more Nintendo 64 games from my past. This is not a best of list, it is simply some of my favorites, and in no specific order. In case you missed the first two here is a link for...

Nintendo 64 Nostalgia part 1

Nintendo 64 Nostalgia part 2

Nintendo 64 Nostalgia Part 4

   Super Smash Bros.. This game is Nintendo's version of a fighting game, and it is awesome. It sheds the traditional fighting game style, and delivers everything you would expect from Nintendo. This is probably my favorite multiplayer game on the Nintendo 64. It was just an absolute blast playing with 3 other friends, falcon punching Kirby into oblivion, throwing barrages of pk thunders. This game is still as fun today, as it was years ago.

    Mario Party 2. Another multiplayer Mario game. Mario Party 2 is basically a board game, with lots of mini games. Of the 3 Mario Party titles, 2 is the one I played the most frequently, that's really the only reason I chose this one. This game is just loads of fun. It randomly puts you on teams of 2v2 3v1 or FFA, for the mini games after each round. We've all cursed that bastard Wario for stealing our star.


 

 Cruis'n World. An arcade style racing game. This is another awesome multiplayer game. Cruis'n World, had you doing just that, cruising the world. You would start in Hawaii, and race all around the world, back to Florida, where you board a spaceship that takes you to the moon. You can do wheelies, drive on two side wheels, do flips, and barrel rolls.

   Blast Corps. Ok, it's time to break up this multiplayer lovefest. Blast Corps has you racing in front of a truck carrying a nuclear weapon, and you must clear a path, otherwise the nuke is going to blow. It's really just all about destruction. You tear down buildings in a variety of different vehicles. This game is so fun, it's easy to forget exactly what you're doing, and go on a destruction rampage, until the truck driver hits something, blowing everyone up.

  Space Station Silicon Valley. Made by the guys who would go on to make the GTA series, and it really shows. Space Station Silicon Valley has you running around different levels, hijacking animal's bodies trying to save humanity. It is basically an early Nintendo toy version of GTA, and it is a lot of fun.


  Ok, that wraps up part 3 of Nintendo 64 Nostalgia. I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe thought about some good times from your past.

Black History Month: Dave Chappelle

   Earlier this week I did a post about Jimi Hendrix, and I figured I would talk about another one of my favorite people. Everyone has watched Chappelle's Show, or at least heard of it. The show sold more DVDs than the Simpsons.  Below is a video of a bit called Kid's Cartoons. This video is NSFW!
                                                

                                                                         Video is NSFW                                                                       

  But what I want to talk about is his stand up. Many comedians talk about real issues that plague society, George Carlin probably being the most well known to do so. It's easy for me to just get depressed while listening to Carlin spit the unadulterated truth at me. But Chappelle is very subtle about it. He may slip it in, and if you're not paying attention you might miss it. Not only that but he keeps you laughing the entire time. He has the perfect mixture of thought provoking material, originality, and of course some doo-doo humor.

Nintendo 64 Nostalgia Part 2

   Since everyone seemed to enjoy my Nintendo Nostalgia post, I thought I would follow up with a few more. Again this is not a definitive "Best" games list, it is simply some of my favorites that I enjoyed as a kid, and is in no particular order.

   Perfect Dark. Yesterday I talked about GoldenEye, well Perfect Dark is basically GoldenEye 2.0. The basic setup is the same, but this game had some awesome weapons, and awesome levels. I'm not sure if it is harder, but it seems like this game kicked my ass more than GoldenEye ever did. But my favorite part of the game was the co-op. This is one of the first games I remember to have co-op, and me and my neighbor would spend hours playing this game.

  Pilotwings 64. In this game, you just basically flew around in different types of flying machines completing objectives. While I enjoyed the normal gameplay. The best part for me was just flying around exploring. This was the first sandbox type game that I remember playing, and it had a huge impact on me. I will never forget putting on those giant wings and just flying around, and sometimes into those flames burning myself.

   Starfox 64. No, I haven't forgotten about this one. This is still, quite possibly, the best flying game I have ever played. I have beat this game hundreds of times, in any possible combination. I'm not sure what else I can say about this game. It's just simply amazing, if you have never played this game then you are seriously missing out.

    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. That's right, the beginning of the Tony Hawk franchise. I was so excited when this game came out. Me and my friends were huge Tony Hawk fans, we even formed our own group that we were going to take to the X-Games. While nothing ever came of that, we still had the game. Flying downhill at break-neck speeds, grinding, flipping. But most of all the soundtrack in this game was just awesome.

   Extreme-G 2. I don't think I've put a racing game on this list yet, and we all know Mario Kart is a great game. So I'm going to talk about X-G 2. This game has you racing 2 wheeled vehicles at insane speeds. It's all you could really want in an arcade style racing game. It has heat-seeking rockets, lazers, mines, bombs, machine guns and more. This game is HARD, it kicked my ass relentlessly. I remember watching my cousin get farther in 1 hour, than I had ever gotten, and was just in awe.


   Ok, thats five more for you. I still have a good bit more which I will probably get to eventually. I also have a lot of NES and SNES games that I can get to if you guys want to see some of that.

   For part 1 click here
   For part 3 click here 
   For part 4 click here 

Nintendo 64 Nostalgia

   Earlier this week I posted a blog about NFL Blitz, so I figured I would post some of my other favorite N64 games, mainly for the nostalgia. This list is not necessarily a "best games" list, just some of my favorites that I remember, and in no particular order.

 Let me get some of the obvious ones out of the way first.

   The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Out of the two N64 Zelda games, I can't really pick a favorite, but I'm going to put Majora's Mask on this list because it doesn't get the praise that it deserves, while Ocarina gets plenty of praise. The 3 day system really made the world feel alive, and made you feel like you had an actual impact on it. I really enjoyed the mask system, being able to play some of the classic Zelda races. And the Fierce Deity Mask was just bad ass.

   Mario 64. Theres nothing I can really say about this game that hasn't been said already. It was Mario's jump into a 3 dimensional world. It showed us how good a 3D platformer could be. Yoshi even makes an appearance when you collect all the stars.

   GoldenEye 007. Another game that everyone knows and loves. GoldenEye was the grandaddy of 3D multiplayer FPS games. Going back and playing it now, this is one of the few games that just hasn't really aged well, mainly due to the controls. But back in the day GoldenEye was king.

   Banjo-Kazooie. Another 3D platformer. A bird and a bear team up to save Banjo's little sister Tooty from the evil witch Gruntilda. This game is just awesome. It's funny, the characters are great, the music is great. You can shoot eggs, fly and smash things, and visit the local witch doctor who will transform you into something useful. But what really stands out in this game for me, is the environment. Each level is very well done, and feels very involved. My favorite was Click Clock Wood, I loved that place.

   

 Jet Force Gemini. Yes another Rare game. Jet Force Gemini is a sci fi, third person shooter. You travel around from planet to planet collecting things to save your friends, or something like that I don't really remember the plot. The plot isn't really important, what is important is the game play. With lots of awesome guns, 3 playable characters (one being a flying dog with lazers on his back), and a co-op mode, this game truly is a gem...imi. Although it does suffer the same dated controls as GoldenEye.


   Okay thats 5 games, I'm going to end it here even though I'm not even a quarter of the way though my list I made. If you guys want to see some more, leave a comment and let me know.

  For part 2 click here.
  For part 3 click here.
  For part 4 click here.