2020.05.25 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 50

50 of these things. Torn on whether to continue. At a certain point when does it stop being a weird series and just become what every day just is now?

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Picking up some older crime novels this week. Was having trouble getting into Mona Lisa Overdrive so rather than keep pushing against it I’ll probably just put it down for a while and pick up what is coming quickly and easily. I find that this happens with my reading habits pretty regularly, I’ll read a bunch of different things and then suddenly find myself stalling out and unable to really click with much. Then I tend to plow through a half-dozen crime or mystery novels and that usually gets me rolling again. I was able to get a bunch of the Richard Stark PARKER novels on audiobook so I’ll probably do a few of those, maybe a Maigret or two.

Currently Playing: They Might Be Giants – “Glean”
Currently Reading: THE BLACK ICE SCORE, Richard Stark

2020.05.22 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 49

That little muted pick scrape thing from the intro of SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO by the Clash… that is cool

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I found a youtube playlist of songs from the Simpsons and discovered that I still know every single lyric to nearly every single song from every episode prior to ~season 14 when I wasn’t watching as religiously.

Is there a more important and influential tv show than The Simpsons? I kind of doubt it. It kind of gets dunked on a lot now (often fairly as it’s clearly not as good as it used to be) but the first 12 seasons are so, particularly the first 8? Is the most consistently brilliant comedy writing ever on television. The average episode from say season 4 or 5 has more jokes in 5 minutes than a lot of modern comedies have in the whole episode and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS FUNNY. You’d expect a show with the quantity of jokes of those Simpsons episode to have some misses, but nope. Every damn one is good. It’s insane. The first 4 seasons of Futurama be like that too.

Currently Playing: Phish – “7/20/13, FirstMerit Bank Bavilion – Chicago, IL”
Currently Reading: RASCAL DOES NOT DREAM OF BUNNYGIRL SENPAI, Hajime Kamoshida

2020.05.21 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 48

Running low on Nongshim ramen. I ain’t eating that Mr. Noodle crap…

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

It’s been gloomy and/or pouring rain all day here now for 3 days. This shouldn’t bother me as it’s not like I was going out anyway, not to mention the fact that I have the merest sliver of visible glass that passes for a window where I spend all day, but somehow just knowing how yucky it is outside is affecting my mood.

The only cure for this, as far as I can tell, is to throw some brightly coloured and trashy anime dubs up on the big screen and maybe play pop music very very loudly. Something with horns and loud guitar I think.

The sun has to come out eventually, let’s just keep grinding away until it does.

Currently Playing: Asian Kung Fu Generation – “Magic Disc”
Currently Reading: MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, William Gibson

2020.05.20 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 47

I have a weird urge to try Matzah… Can I get Matzah on doordash?

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

A new thing I’m into is watching gaming “evolution” videos on youtube. Long compilations of gameplay footage from every incarnation of a particular series from its inception to the modern day. I love seeing gameplay of weird games that only ever came out on computers that were only ever in Japan. I also love videos that just show every single port of different games. I watched an over 60 minute video covering every single port and version of the Midway arcade game RAMPAGE (a childhood favorite that has NOT held up). This might be one of those things that require your brain to be broken in the very specific manner that mine is to enjoy.

I’m mentally ill and that keeps me pretty busy.

Currently Playing: Masayuki Suzuki – “All Time Rock ‘n Roll”
Currently Reading: RECORD OF LODOSS WAR: THE GREY WITCH, Ryo Mizuno

2020.05.19 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 46

It was a holiday here yesterday so I took the extra day off from the blog too. I promise I didn’t do anything exciting.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I rewatched the original Ghost in the Shell last night. It is still brilliant, even moreso than I remembered. The moments of stillness (the montage of environmental storytelling, in addition to being beautiful is some of the best examples of character development through slow cinema you’re likely to see) really stood out to me this time. The way Oshii lets shots linger and give you time to take everything in and sit and think about what’s happening. Without intending to I seem to have begun a bit of an Oshii retrospective as last week I also watched the original Patlabor OVA series with some friends. We’re watching the first Patlabor movie tomorrow and I suspect I’ll just continue on and watch as much of his work as I’m able to get my hands on.

Rewatching Ghost in the Shell also has me wanting some more cyberpunk up in hurr, so I’m finally getting around to reading the final installment in William Gibson’s “Sprawl Trilogy”, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE. I also kind of want to rewatch The Matrix? At least the first movie. I haven’t watched it in years and I suspect have seen way more of the things it’s riffing on (and in many cases just referencing directly) and that seems like it would be a fun thing to do.

Currently Playing: Kenji Kawai – “Ghost in the Shell Original Soundtrack”
Currently Reading: MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, William Gibson

2020.05.15 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 45

Gunther was slain in the catacombs.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

It’s movie night here at the hovel. The plan is to watch SCOOB with the tiny anarchists who live in my house. I am looking forward to hanging out with said anarchists, but I am NOT looking forward to this movie. Before even seeing the trailer I was pretty sure this movie was going to be an abomination.

Scooby-Doo is one of, if not my favorite cartoon series of all time? Gang of meddling kids and their dog solve mysteries. It’s simple and perfect. It’s so good that it has been going for ~50 years at this point. It’s an infinitely repeatable premise that needs no updating. That’s why in the last 50 years every time they HAVE tried to change it it’s always failed. Adding (literally) Scrappy sidekicks, or worse making the monsters they investigate ACTUALLY supernatural (completely missing the point) always ruins the magic. For the past 10-15 years there has been a tremendous run of fantastic Scooby shows and movies. The direct to video film series has been putting out mostly good (and some fantastic) installments twice a year like clockwork. Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc, Be Cool Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? have all been spectacular and all have the same voice cast (with one or two exceptions, when someone retires and is replaced). The current line up of Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard and Kate Micucci is my S-Rank, canonical Scooby-Doo cast. (Welker has been voicing Fred since the original Scooby-Doo Where Are You? series). Which brings me to why I was already pretty sure SCOOB was going to be dire.

They cast celebrity dipshits instead of the people who’ve been voicing these characters for (in some cases FIFTY years). Get the fuck out of here WILL FORTE. You are not now, nor will you ever be Fred Jones. Gina Rodriguez, I don’t know who you are, but I know who you’re NOT: Velma Dinkley. Amanda Seyfried, I thought it was cool that you were on Twin Peaks: The Return, but it’s NOT cool that you’re scab-Daphne Blake. Zac Efron? Just… just get out of my sight.

Anyway, this movie looks like dog-shit, I hope my children hate it so I never have to watch it again.

Currently Reading: THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, Edgar Rice Burroughs

2020.05.14 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 44

They announced a new Paper Mario game and it’s out in 2 months!

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Today I learned about a Super Famicom game called “UFO Kamen Yakisoba – Kettler no Kuroi Inbou”. If you don’t know, the Super Famicom is name of the console that would be released in North America as the Super Nintendo. The game is a side-scrolling beat-em-up of the type that was very common in the mid 90’s in the arcades and on the 16-bit consoles of the era. It features as its protagonist the mascot UFO KAMEN YAKISOBA, a costumed vigilante from a series of commercials for Yakisoba instant noodles from Nissin Foods. He would do battle with a nefarious villain named Kettler who appears to be a man in a onesie with a kettle on his head. There was apparently a feature film produced in 1994.

So. To review: A super-nintendo beat-em-up based on a commercial for instant noodles that would go on to be a major motion picture.

Heck of a start to a thursday.

Currently Playing: STYX – “The Grand Illusion”
Currently Reading: SQUIRREL SEEKS CHIPMUNK, David Sedaris

2020.05.13 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 43

I’ve begun talking to myself so much that I’ve started to answer myself and get into arguments. No I haven’t. Shut up, you.

Greetings from our hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I have the theme song from My Little Pony stuck in my head. I bet if I drilled a hole in my forehead… it would hurt.

Today is the first day in the last couple weeks I haven’t had terrible back pain by 3pm, I am celebrating by sitting in this chair for another 6 or 7 hours tonight. I got this butt pillow what’s supposed to help with back and tail bone pain and for the most part it has worked beautifully, at least for the tail bone. Some say with age comes wisdom, but actually age just brings more and more stupid doodads and contraptions you buy to mitigate the ever-mounting agony of simply existing. I spent entirely too much of my youth consuming too much pizza and doing painful pratfalls. So desperate for attention was I. I would routinely reenact a Monty Python sketch wherein Graham Chapman would wrestle himself (Colin “Bomber” Harris!) and pulled zero punches. I regret taking some of those bumps now, or at the very least not marrying them with some kind of physical fitness regime as I now have all the nagging, wear-and-tear injuries of a career athlete with none of the accolades, accomplishments or slender frame! At least I have the memory of the echoing gales of laughter… well, at least of my friend Bernard laughing pretty hard. Memorable laugh on ol’ Bernard. Good guy. Lives in Toronto now.

Currently Playing: MYTH & ROID – “MYTH & ROID ベストアルバム「MUSEUM-THE BEST OF MYTH & ROID-“
Currently Reading: I have like 20 pages left in 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Jules Verne

2020.05.12 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 42

What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

They’re releasing an HD remaster of the first 2 Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games in september. THPS 3 was the best one in my opinion, but it also still plays just fine and it’s not that hard to get GCs or PS2s running on modern setups. This is pretty cool. The announcement says that “many songs from the original soundtrack” will be featured. This seems like it would be the hardest part of doing this and probably the reason it hasn’t been done before now. It would be a nightmare trying to license all that music again. I just hope they got Superman by Goldfinger.

My brother brought to my attention this unused song from the SNES Flintstones game this morning. (There’s a sentence for you). Holy shit, it is a banger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPlDHLuJLmk&feature=share

Currently Playing: That fucking Flintstones jam.
Currently Reading: still 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Jules Verne

2020.05.11 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 41

I introduced one of the tiny anarchists who live in my house to Mario Party on the weekend. It’s important to teach your children that everything in life is random bullshit and nowhere near as fun as it probably should be.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I watched PLAYING WITH FIRE with the kids yesterday. It’s the latest film in the rich tradition of big strong pro-wrestlers being saddled with small children and being forced to care for them and along the way learning valuable lessons about themselves. Your enjoyment of it will likely depend on your tolerance for that particular sub-genre. I found it cute, occasionally pretty funny. I called literally every single beat along the way, but I see that less as a damnation of the film and more that it knew EXACTLY what it was and what beats it’s supposed to hit and hit them all well. Plus, John Cena does the “you can’t see me” thing with his hands at one point.

Just read that we lost Martin Pasko. His work doesn’t get the praise it deserves. He wrote or edited and revitalized many of your favorite DC comics and was co-writer of the canonical best Batman film: MASK OF THE PHANTASM. A true giant of comics and animation. RIP

Currently Reading: 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Jules Verne