Of F-holes and G-strings

On the internet, and indeed, perhaps even in real life, (I don't have enough experience there to know for sure) the most important thing in the world is to feel like you're better than everyone else. Now, in the olden days, when your crusty old parents were still nice and doughy, you had to actually do things to be better than everyone else. Something great, like winning a gold medal at the Olympics, or discovering a new element, or writing a blog (ladies). But then, a great man invented the internet, and decided that He would be the last person to ever have to put effort into feeling better than everyone else. You see, nowadays, you can feel superior not for the things you create, but for the things you consume. Why write a book of your own when you can feel better than anyone who has ever read Twilight just by reading literally anything that isn't Twilight? (Hating on Twilight is sure to keep me hip and trendy with the kids, right?) Why start a band of your own when you can feel better than everyone else just by listening to music they've never heard of? Indeed, it is that second example that I'm running with, because it's become a common phenomenon in recent years for people to judge others based on their taste in music, with the quality of one's taste being inversely proportional to how many people have heard of the bands they like. However, there is a way to beat this system, a way to prove that you're better than everyone by going in the exact opposite direction: Composers that everyone's heard of, but tragically few people actually listen to. That's right, this is a post about Classical Music!

Before I go any further, I feel I should explain the title. As I'm sure you know, all violins have a two little holes in them that are shaped kind of like an "f", or an integral sign, a fact which has not been lost on anyone who has ever made a Calculus textbook.

A good violinist always remembers to add C

This hole is, hilariously, called an f-hole by real people who probably have graduate degrees and loving families. The G-String, on the other hand, is the lowest string on the Violin, probably. Its inclusion is a reference to Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on The G String", which is only played on the G-String. My title is certainly a reference to that, apropros of something. But it's totally not a reference to something else that is referencing that. I definitely did not start listening to classical music because of something that I played or read.

I swear, officer, I've never seen that penguin before in my life.

And here I find myself in the strange position of name-dropping a song that's kind of by Bach, but not quite, for the second time on this blog. Previously it was Ave Maria, based on Bach's "Prelude in C Major" from The Well Tempered Clavier. But "Air on The G String" is actually just an arrangement by some show-offy violinist proving that he could play Bach's "Air" on just one string. I think that's an interesting coincidence, and there are plenty of people willing to confuse coincidence with humor, and I'm willing to take advantage of that.

So, what can you do to to become a savvy listener of Real Art? Basically just check out Spotify, man. That's all there really is to it. There's actually an app called "Classify", in a pathetic attempt at humor worthy of this blog, that is an app for just classical music. Though technically, the "Classical" period only includes 1750-1830, it has music from the entire Common Practice Era, from 1600-1900, as well as newer stuff, probably. But if you're the kind of person who knows the difference between "Baroque", "Classical", and "Romantic" eras, then you should be the one spreading the good word, so I'm not making a fool of myself just because I apparently have a thing for girls who can't play the violin. Just another weird thing about me, if you're still keeping score.

Some people were meant to keep their integrals on paper

But before you dive right in, you might as well listen to the greatest song of all time, a composition with the catchy title "Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G Minor". Actually, that joke about the catchy name was hardly even sarcastic. It would seem that most great composers cared enough to create some of the most stunningly beautiful art in human history, but not quite enough to give them proper names. As such, you'll find that a lot of songs have titles that consist of some broad category of composition like "Symphony" or "Concerto", a number, maybe an opus, a couple other nonsense letters and numbers, and a key. If any actual title is included, it's shoved at the back, where you can't even see it, and was probably made up by someone other than the composer, after his death. After the composer's death, that is. The person who made up the title was (hopefully) very much alive when he did so.

But back to Hungarian Dance... actually, you know what? Screw it. Just find everything by the London Symphony Orchestra, and listen to it. I just found that they have a cover of "The Final Countdown", and I'm freaking out a little bit right now. This is in addition to the two albums of greatest hits video game music they've produced, and the 50 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music playlist that's provided me with much of the classical music I've been listening to. In even more addition, they've got a whole host of Star Wars and classic rock music. "Eye of the Tiger"? You bet. "Hey, Jude"? Sure. "Bohemian Rhapsody"? I've already got an orchestral version of that, but sure, why the hell not? Ironically, Spotify is currently down for me, so I'm having trouble finding an exhaustive list of all their music.

Actually, now that we're on the subject of orchestral covers of great songs, you might as well check out Walt Ribeiro, (Youtube name: ForOrchestra) who makes some pretty boss orchestral covers of songs like "Gotta Catch'em All", "Gangnam Style", "My Little Pony", and "The Thong Song". Apparently he comes out with a new arrangement every week, but I'm not sure what day. I certainly hope that it isn't Thursday... Too Soon.

Good Night, Sweet Prince

That was supposed to be an image of Thomas O'brien, but since I couldn't find one, I decided to pay my respects elsewhere.

Now that my internet is back online and I'm too distracted by it to make jokes about how dependent I am on the internet, I can check Spotify, and I now know that you should absolutely not try to listen to everything by the London Symphony Orchestra. Unless you live in a country with a mean healthcare system, (Thanks, Obama!*) the total runtime of all their music may outlast your life expectancy. I went to their page, and the songs just keep going down and down forever, until your scroll wheel grinds into the chassis of your mouse. I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the way, it just loops back up to the top, and you keep scrolling down forever, like Bowser's Infinite Staircase.

Pictured: The London Symphony Orchestra

I would just like to make clear at this point that I am entirely aware that making a post about Classical Music was a bad idea. When I first had it, I thought it might be bad, when I told my secondary Content Manager about it, she seemed all for it, but I suspected that it might be bad, and now that I'm cheekbone-deep into it, I am certain that it is bad. But I can't give up now, because the word of orchestral "Final Countdown" must be spread. Everyone must know of it, and if I deprive even a single person of that joy by not finishing this, then I scarcely believe that I could ever forgive myself.

Since I'm talking about Classical music, I would be remiss to not talk about some composers, if only to provide some evidence that I have some semblance of an idea of what I'm talking about. (But don't tell the judge. Forged evidence is serious business.) Since I already mentioned Bach, I guess I'll go back to talking about him. Or I guess I could say "Bach" to talking about him, if you need a reason to hate me. Johann Sebastian Bach, or "The Big Bach", as he's called by hopefully only fictional persons, was a great composer. He's apparently considered the greatest composer of all time by a lot of people, and I'm certainly not going to argue. Technically, he isn't a Classical composer, but a Baroque composer, but as I've said before, no one asked all that. His greatness stems from the fact that his name was "Johann", and with a name like that, you can't help but be classy and great. It's a proven fact.

According to Google Image Search, this man was probably great.

Moving on in both alphabetical order and greatness, we get to Beethoven. Now, if you ask the average person to name a Classical composer, they'll probably throw out Mozart. But if you ask them to hum a classical song, they'll probably come up with something by Beethoven. Ludwig Van Beethoven is classical music. Named after the oldest Koopaling, [citation not needed] he has composed some of the most recognizable songs of all time, like "Fur Elise", "Ode to Joy", and "This song that I will forever associate with a girl whaling on her younger brother". (That's a link, in case you're curious) Beethoven famously went deaf, but he still wrote music. That's how great he was. He wasn't about to let an organ as dumb as his ears tell him what made music good. He was so good that only italicized font can convey how good he was. Mozart was definitely a great composer, but the beginning of one of his most popular songs was ripped off of Mario Brothers, anyway, so I'm not sure that I can say he was as great as Beethoven.

The last composer that I really care to mention would have to be Tchaikovsky, perhaps my personal favorite composer. He has a lot of famous compositions, like "Swan Lake", "The 1812 Overture", and "That song that plays when Spongebob gets the suds" (That's not a link, because I'm confident you all know what I'm talking about.) He also wrote "Romeo and Juliet: Fantasy Overture", a name that you probably don't recognize, for a song that you almost certainly do. Any time two characters are in love, this is the song that plays. You remember that part of "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie is imagining the teacher grading papers, and then she falls in love with his essay? That was this song. Tchaikovsky has a great skill for writing long compositions that don't sound boring or drawn-out, and for that, he gets mad respect.

And that's really all I have to say about about classical music. Just follow these tips, and you too can have more class than a community college! But even though all of these composers are very great, they still can't hold a candle to the one true genre of music: "Neoclassical Darkwave". (Pay close attention, and you can catch bits of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor)

Bonus Joke: Pachelbel only ever wrote one canon, so he had to make sure that it was something that would be really memorable. An important part of any composition is its key signature, so when it came time decide, he remembered the immortal words of Renee Descartes... and he gave it the D.

Or, if you prefer your jokes in the form of couplets in iambic pentameter...

When Pachelbel decided "Canon"s Key
He made just like Descartes, and gave The D.


*Sarcasm applied at the reader's discretion

The Oncoming Storm

NOTE: Michael Parks has since abandoned this project, so some of the links might be broken. This is because everything I link to dies. I resolve to use these powers for good. But he still has a Youtube channel, if you're interested.

Are you a fan of funny things on the internet? Of course you are. That's what you mistook this blog for, right? Do you often find yourself desperately scouring the You Tubes for funny new things to watch? But of course. Thanks to Obama care, such measures are practically a necessity in this day and age. Have you ever owed someone a favor that your debtor insisted "could only be repaid with your body or your mind", and you're saving yourself for marriage, so you were forced to settle on the latter? No? Oh. Me neither. There was no reason for bringing that up.

On a note that is completely related to those first two things, but not at all related to that last one, I have a friend who is quite a funny thing on the internet. I've actually linked to some of his work before, (I believe it was in the post about Gay Licks. Well, one of them, anyway.) but he's on the move again, and he's started a new sort of webseries called "Storm Pocket", which seems to consist of him and my other internet friend, Payton Knobeloch, talking about comic stuff, and maybe fondling Jesus. But just like, portraits of Jesus. Nothing like, creepy or anything. They also have an original composition as their opening theme, and it's really, really good. So there's that.

Basically, this first episode is about two grown(?), adult(???) men(No questions here), talking about a cartoon about superheroes that is unabashedly made for children. This contrasts starkly with the cartoons that I watch, which heavily feature esoteric literary references, morally complex situations, and magical girls.

Truly, the wallpaper of a cultured gentleman

Basically, the video takes the form of Michael Parks and Payton Knobeloch shooting the shit about a show that they watched, and occasionally saying funny things, all without the warm comfort of a pseudonym to hide behind. If it helps, think of it as being kind of like "Game Grumps", except they're not talking about games, they're not really grumping, and no one is likely to make musical remixes of their words.

"I'm Spell-Check" "And I'm Not-so-Spell-Check!"

Afterwards, they talk about Injustice: Gods Among Us, which is a video game that is about comic books. So, if this first video is any indication, Storm Pocket will largely consist of two guys talking about things that are based on comics, but tactfully avoiding going in for the money shot and ever actually talking about comics themselves. I'll admit, the video does get a little slow towards the middle, when they're talking about Injustice and things that I can't really say I care too much about, but it picks back up towards the end, and I definitely think it's worth checking out. If nothing else, more views will give Parks some much needed self-esteem, so it's practically like charity work. Hit the refresh button a few times, and I might see if I can pull some strings and get you a few gentlepoints for your troubles.

The second video by Michael Parks that I've come to plug is a short comedy sketch about granola bars (OR IS IT?!?) It also features some music that is almost certainly from Earthbound, stellar acting, graphic depictions of granola mangling, and some pretty dope sound effects. There isn't really much else to say about it, except that Parks isn't really racist, I swear. The joke is a rather short, "blink and you'll miss it" kind of thing, so if you need to apply eyedrops, it may be a good idea to do so before watching this video.

In addition, he has a short Horror film, about 20 minutes long, called "Whispering Pines", which, among other things, includes the most dangerous secret in the universe. It's only mentioned casually, though, so unless you already know what it is, you're unlikely to catch it. The film, much like Parks himself, is just a joke, with no intention of being taken seriously, so don't go in expecting an actual horror film.

I know Parks has some other things he's done, like the Parksnotes that he turned in as actual school projects, but I can't seem to find them, which is something of a shame. I seem to recall him mentioning that he'd purged much of his work, due to some silly thing called "standards of quality", but you'll never have to worry about anything like that over here. I promise to never delete anything from my blog, no matter how shamefully terrible I know it to be. Such is the depth of my dedication to my readers.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Collections of Short Stories

This is a stupid category. There, I said it. A “Collection of Short Stories” isn’t a real thing, any more than a treehouse is a real thing (Go ahead. Provide me with photographic evidence of a genuine house in someone’s tree. You can’t). However, it is the best way I could think of to describe “Machine of Death” without using words like “anthology”, and MENSA suspects me of breaking into their fancy-word vault enough as it is. For the sake of brevity, I will from now on be referring to “Machine of Death” as a book, because it is indeed possible to purchase it in that medium. For those of you who have forgotten what a book is, or are too young to remember the days of yore, it’s kind of like a sandwich with words. So this will be less of a “list”, and more of an unpaid advertisement for “Machine of Death”, because this blog is nothing if not a billboard for the things that I like.

1. Machine of Death

Imagine, if you will, that you lived in a world wherein a spectacular machine existed. A machine so spectacular, that one might even call it a Machine of Death. This wondrous machine, upon taking a blood sample from any human being, will spit out a small card with a single word or short phrase that tells the user how he or she will die. Much like bizzaro Sylvia Brown, the machine’s predictions are infallible: you WILL die in the way it says. It will not tell you when you will die, and the cause given can range from as vague as “cessation of heart” to as specific as “Choking on the $50 wedding ring that your cheap-ass almost-fiance put in your milkshake as a ‘creative’ way to propose (inspired by a true story)”. With these rules established, I ask you this: Would you take the test? Would you live in fear, or would you be emboldened by the knowledge that anything other than your CoD (Cause of Death, for those who refuse to admit to having ever watched a forensics show) will always fail to kill you? This was an interesting enough thought experiment to Ryan North, webcartoonist and internet pal, that he accepted a bunch of short stories from a bunch of internet writers, including several other webcomic writers. Then he and David Malki! (Another webcartoonist. The factorial is part of his name) curated the submissions into Machine of Death. It’s easy to think that after the first few stories, MoD would get old. After all, all of the stories follow the same format. Some person has a cause of death, so he lives in fear of that thing. Then, through a crazy loophole of wordplay, they’re killed by something completely different from what they’re expecting! For example, some guy has “Drowning” on his card, so he stays away from all water, and thinks he’s safe. But then he gets pneumonia, and drowns from the fluids in his lungs. Hilarious! With all the stories using the same premise, it’s hard to imagine each one coming up with a novel take on the subject.

If you found the above statement true, then you better exercise your imagination, because that’s totally what happens. I’d rather not spoil how any of the stories end, but few, if any, rely on the “It actually meant this the whole time!” plot twist. The stories were short and surprising in a way that I could probably compare to “The Twilight Zone”, if I had ever watched “The Twilight Zone”. Each story has society reacting to the machine in a different way. Some fear the machine, claiming that it ruins the mystery of life. Some celebrate the machine, reveling in the sense of destiny that it gives them. Some devolve into endless, painstakingly described sex parties. At least, they will if one of my submissions gets picked for the next book. Yes, that’s right: Machine of Death was so successful that they decided to make a follow-up. In fact the submissions have already been selected, so you’ll probably have to wait for MoD III to enjoy the publication of my author-insert fic (in more ways than one, if you know what I mean).

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. “My money is far too valuable to be thrown away on some delusional blogger’s suggestion.” Did I mention that it’s available as an e-book, or even a PDF, for completely free? And you don’t even have to buy it from The Pirate Bay!* The creators are offering it for download on their site, and it’s completely legal, if that’s the kind of thing you care about. Honestly, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you downloaded it right now, and never even finished this post. I mean, why read my ramblings when you could be classing it up with real, professional literature, written by the kinds of people who churn out real, professional literature? You literally have nothing to lose. In economics, they say that every decision has a cost, but that’s not true for reading this book. Now, you might claim that, by reading MoD, you’re incurring an opportunity cost, in the form of the wasted time that you could be spending doing something else. I counter that if you are reading this blog, your time is of infinitesimal value, and is therefore negligible. Checkmate, readers.

But you’re a rational person, surely. It isn’t enough to not have a reason to not read MoD. The burden of proof is on me to give a good reason for you to do that. Well, what if I told you that this book made Glen Beck, a man that, statistically speaking, you dislike, angry? (Meta-appositives: For when regular ones just won’t confuse enough people.) That’s right! Through a bit of underhanded trickery in the form of requesting that their fans not pre-order the book, and purchase it on the day it was released, Ryan North and David Malki! managed to kick Glenn’s book off the bestsellers list. If there is a better reason to read something, I don’t know what it is.

*This euphemism is credited to Jontron, the game not-so-grump. Plagiarism is something I could get expelled for, so I reckoned I’d credit him for it. I won’t give Gaston credit for the “Sandwich with words” joke, however. He’s an asshole.

Of Loners and Friends

In biology, a symbiotic relationship is one that benefits both organisms, like the relationship between a hippo and the bird that cleans its teeth. A parasitic relationship is one where the parasite reaps all the benefits, while the host suffers because of it, like the relationship between your mom and the bird that cleans her teeth (Who’s getting the short end of the stick? I’ll never tell!). I think there’s a third kind of relationship, where one organism benefits, but the other is neither harmed nor helped. I don’t care what it’s called, and neither should you. Theoretically, other types of relationships exist, like ones where neither organism benefits, or ones where both participants suffer. The scientific terms for these are “Not being in a freaking relationship” and “Matrimony” (Zinger alert!).

I am bringing this up because I would like to initiate such a relationship with “Loner and Friends”, a blog run by one of my internet friends/real-life acquaintances. A parasitic one, to be specific. You see, Payton Knobeloch actually has the stones to give his real name on the internet. Because Payton isn’t the kind of person who developed a sense of humor as a defense mechanism against his crippling loneliness. His humor is borne of the fact that he is a superior specimen of humanity, the kind that will be artificially selected in the coming years. He was, is, and will likely forever be one of the “cool kids”. But not the kind who’s a jerk to the uncool kids. No, the kind who’s a jerk to everyone, but in such a way that is just so damn cool. (At least, that’s my opinion. There are those who find themselves suffering from acute-onset panty twisting whenever he says things). Of all the people that I would truthfully describe as “An unapologetic asshole”, Payton Knobeloch is probably my very favorite. But beneath his rude exterior, Payton has a kind heart, as evidenced by the fact that he once called me “The funniest person on Facebook”. Ethicists have rated this as being on par with “Reading to the mentally disabled” in terms of being indicative of a good person.

So, now that I’ve established that I have a creepy, one sided bromance with this guy, what does this mean for you, the readers? Well, it means that you should check out his blog. As you may have noticed, his blog is not on tumblr, which is just more evidence that he is a more perfect man than I. From his introductory post, it seems to me like his blog will cover a range of topics similar to my own. To be more specific, most of it will be about “I have no idea, man”, which is exactly what the Havoc Mantis blog is all about.

To put the desired relationship into another perspective, I turn to the classic “Good cop, bad cop” trope. In this analogy, “Loner and Friends” would be the good cop, doing all the things blogs are expected to do: Keeping a schedule, sticking to a certain spectrum of topics, striving to entertain/inform readers, ect. “Havoc Mantis”, on the other hand, will fill the role of “bad cop”, doing things outside the rules. I’m a man with no allegiance, except to the lulz. And not even the lulz of my readers. For you see, this is all for me. There’s no such thing as altruism. Everything I ever type is working towards the endgame plan of being able to look back at my work as a senile old man and say “Damn. I was pretty clever back then, weren’t I?” This will be followed by a quick and clean death, as the assassins that I hired to take my life, should I ever make a grammatical mistake so great as to be insurmountable, do their job. Anyway, I should probably get back to the “bad cop” analogy that I never really finished. The point is that I might break all the rules of comedy, sometimes in ways so bombastic that the end result will look identical to following the rules of comedy.

So there you have it. Basically, the intention of this post is to guilt Payton into mentioning my blog on his blog, which will net me a lot more readers than this post will net him, because of the aforementioned popularity. Also, he’s confident enough to spread the word about his blog, whereas I haven’t even mentioned mine on my Facebook, which only the upper echelons of my companions may access. As a result, I gain more than he does, and negative reciprocity ensues. Because in the prisoner’s dilemma, betraying is always the most rational choice.

I guess what I’m trying to say is… *gets down on one knee* Payton Knobeloch, will you be my blog buddy? (No homo) (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s a legitimate, alternate deathstyle) (That was a joke. I am totally cool with gay people. I’m being so sincere right now)

EDIT: He said yes! Squee!!! 

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Nine Reasons

Well, the threat of a new year has frightened me into attempting to do something productive with my life. And, due to a tragic misfire in the neurons of my brain, I have interpreted “something productive” as “Writing words, only to promptly dump them down the garbage disposal of the internet”.So, what topic would make it easiest to trick myself into thinking this is time well spent? Unfortunately, I can answer that question about as well as I can grasp the fact that blogging is a one-way medium of communication. Thankfully,Kotaro Uchikoshi, writer of the game “Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors”, has graciously protected me from the harsh burden of creative thinking, with his almost-desperate pleas for people to mention his game in blogs and such, so that it would garner enough attention to warrant a sequel. (That’s right, kids: 48 words and 7 commas in a single sentence. It takes focus and dedication to write this convolutedly.) And that’s how we got here. So I’m going to give 9 reasons that you, the reader of these pixels, should play Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (Abbreviated to “999” from here on out, because I can never remember the order of the persons and hours and doors, and I’m wasting hella seconds by Googling it every time I type it). I chose the number 9 because, regardless of how many reasons I can actually come up with, this game is pretty big on that particular number, so I figured it fit. So, with just a spot of further ado…

I suppose I should begin with a description of what exactly it is that I’m plugging. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a point-and-click adventure game for the Nintendo DS. That’s right, just like from the old school days. You pick stuff up, interact with your environment, and solve puzzles. The game centers around the protagonist Junpei, who was kidnapped by an individual in a gas mask named “Zero” and placed in a ship with 8 other people, and forced to play “The Nonary Game” to escape. They have 9 hours to escape, and there are 9 numbered doors, which are important to the playing of The Nonary Game. It is kind of like Professor Layton, except quite different. Saying anything more about it would be quite boring for the both of us, so let us move on to the meat of this post.

"Are you my Mummy?"

9. The plot (twists) Honestly, I could simplify this post to one reason, and it would be this one. It’s hard to describe how incredible these twists are, even using the kind of description usually reserved for hyperbole. The last couple hours of this game is like getting repeatedly sucker-punched in the story glands. This game is like learning that Rosebud was his sled, that Darth Vader was his father, and that it was really planet Earth in the future, all at the same time. Continuously. This game is like if M. Night Shyamalan made a game, decided to put a whole career’s worth of twists in it, and didn’t pick the low-hanging fruit of internet comedy. Mysteries hound our hero at every turn. What is the purpose of The Nonary Game? Why were these particular people kidnapped? Who is Zero? All these questions are answered with dramatic and surprising reveals, yet the most important question of all goes tragically unanswered: “Why is Lotus dressed like that?”.

Lotus, seen on the far left with her "striking assets"

8. The Characters Since a full third of the title is about the characters, you might expect that they be something of a focus. This is something that you would be correct to expect. The characters are all surprisingly deep. And I noticed something rather peculiar about them: I had difficulty rating them from favorite to least favorite. A substantial part of the Nonary game comes from deciding who will accompany you through each of the doors, and it was often a tough decision, as each character had qualities that were admirable and qualities that were… the opposite of that. 

7. Science/Math As you may expect from a game whose title is often abbreviated to just numerals, numbers are a pretty big deal in this game. Digital roots (found by taking the sum of the different digits of a number, until you get a single digit number) and non-decimal bases (particularly hexidecimal) are featured prominently. As far as science goes, a whole bunch of experiments and phenomena are name-dropped, and they sounded legit enough that I couldn’t be buggered to check if they actually happened. Then again, it is quite a feat of buggering to get me to do research, so perhaps this isn’t a terribly impressive benchmark, after all. 

6. Graphic descriptions of exploded bodies: I don’t want to get into spoilers too much, but… yeah. In at least one path, (multiple endings, btw) someone is exploded in a manner that could be described as graphic. If you end up playing this game, you may find yourself with a new appreciation of just how white an ulna is.  I’m not saying it’s a main attraction, but I’m sure there’s someone out there who would consider this a turn-on. Wait… NO! I didn’t mean it that way! I… please… let’s just agree that never happened, alright?

5. Wordplay Despite being stuck in a sinking ship with little chance of survival, or perhaps because of it, the participants of the Nonary game make quite a few puns. In fact, one of the major plot twists centers around a pun. Am I just joking? I’ll never tell! And if there’s one thing we can all agree on, I’m sure it’s that puns are agreeable. Right? 

4. I heard your middle school English teacher say that you couldn’t. Are you going to let that bitch (cuss alert!) be right? No! She’ll regret ever saying that you would never read anything more challenging than a McDonald extra value menu!

According to Google Image Search, this is the tragic face of bad teaching in America.

3. Music I listen to mostly to video game music, so I am the kind of person that has opinions on the stuff. And my opinion of this particular soundtrack is pretty good. It does what it sets out to do, which is evoke an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear. It also has notes in a way that sound good.

2. Help a brother out. By buying this game, you’re supporting indie game developers, or whatever. And you WILL buy, it right? Because, I mean, what kind of monster emulates?

1. Puzzles Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Since I’m talking about this game, I suppose I should mention the gameplay. Despite my comparison to Professor Layton up there, the puzzles of this game are mostly of quite a different sort. Each puzzle is a room, or set of rooms, where you must “seek a way out”. This is done by looking for clues, picking up items, and solving puzzles. You know, Scooby Doo type stuff. Despite this terrible description, it is actually pretty fun.

Isn’t it funny how, if you made a bar graph charting the length of each reason as a function of reason number, it would look basically exactly like a mirror image of the Cingular bars? The point I’m trying to make is that I ran out of things to say pretty quickly, then kept on running out as the day went on.

What’s this? EXTRA SECRET BONUS REASON!

0. Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward That’s right. 999 already has a sequel. Since the entire point of spreading the word was to drum up enough enthusiasm to allow a sequel, you may think that this entire post was a waste of time. And I don’t disagree. But that doesn’t make any of these reasons less valid. Playing 999 first will allow for a more enjoyable experience while playing Virtue’s Last Reward. Why should you play VLR? Well, all the same reasons as 999, except even more. There’s more science, more puzzling, more/better music, more plot, and more character development. As of the writing of this post, it’s the only game that made me glad that my brother lets me play his 3DS. Unfortunately, VLR is quite lacking in the exploded bodies department, but it makes up for it with some damn decent voice acting, if you’re really adamant about having 9 reasons to play.

Spoiler Alert: It's James Earl Jones all along.

In the end, the real reason that I want you to play these games is so that I can feel less bad about referencing them. Shocking Twist!