'tisn't The Season

Well, it's no longer summer, which means that school is starting back up. As a natural consequence, I no longer get any sleep. And from this, we can infer that I'll start blogging again, because only sleep deprivation can make up for the sense of humor that I seem to have left in my other pants. Now, I know that just about every other post contains an apology for how long it's been since my last post, but this marks the end of the longest hiatus this blog has ever been on, so I felt the occasion deserved a special mention.

As you can clearly see from the fact that I've been sitting here for roughly 20 minutes without typing anything, on my third attempt to write a post since the last one I published, I have ceased to be funny. Or rather, I have ceased to be funny on this blog. I assure you, this never happens in any other facet of my life. I'm still just as capable of hellishly clever Facebook comments as I always have been. My internet friends are routinely astounded by my ability to amuse them by mentioning things they know about. I recently performed improvisational comedy so laudably that I was paid a dollar to take my shirt off. That's how you know they like it.

Yeah, I tried to write two other posts previous to this, but didn't finish them because they were more boring than an asteroid mining station. Because there is no book funnier than a thesaurus. The first one was basically just humorlessly describing a bunch of stuff I've done recently. (Did you know that there's now a second Machine of Death? I sure did!) I also mentioned the special $30 credit you get from the Nintendo eShop if you register both Fire Emblem Awakening and Shin Megami Tensei IV. In fact, I may need to sell a copy of SMT IV soon. It's a pretty cool game. And by cool, I mean it's not hot. And by hot, I mean stolen. Which it is not.

The other post was about mega Pokemon, but that just kind of devolved into me bitching about competitive stuff. Mega Pokemon, in case you were lucky enough to not know, are a new aspect of Pokemon that's halfway between a new form and a proper evolution. "Mewthree", whom I wrote about earlier, turned out to be a Mega Evolution of Mewtwo. A few others have been announced, like Mega Lucario, Mega Blaziken, Mega Ampharos, and some others. Also, Mega Kangaskahn, who, I shit you not, is just regular Kangaskahn, except the baby is outside the pouch. Fighting alongside the mother. It takes a special amount of effort to combine child abuse and animal abuse into a new game mechanic, but it's an effort that Game Freak thought was worth it. Speaking of effort, it sounds like there's finally going to be an in-game explanation of effort values. You can call me Dean Kamen, from the way I'm making segues (He's the inventor of the segway, to save you a trip to Google, and he died by falling off of a cliff on his own invention, in a way that is totally not funny or being made fun of by me.) Actually, I don't really have anything else to say about that, so I guess that was kind of a segue to nowhere. Ahem.

I think it's cute that people hope that Mega Ampharos will finally make him competitively viable, because he definitely won't be. The funny thing about Mega Pokemon is that you can only have one on a team at a time. Which means that Mega Ampharos will have to compete with far superior Pokemon for a single team slot. Exacerbating this problem is the fact that, while all the other Mega Pokemon revealed thus far were given great abilities like Speed Boost, Adaptability, Huge Power, and Magic Bounce, Ampharos was given Mold Breaker, which will help him break through the Lightningrod Seakings that no doubt terrorize the NU tier. Add to that the fact that he looks exactly like a normal Ampharos, but with romance novel hair, and I just don't like him.

Look at that frown. Not even he likes his hair.

Also, he's a dragon type, because, you know, why the hell not? Actually, that's not a rhetorical question, because it's one I'm about to answer: Because he used to be a sheep. Sheep do not turn into dragons. That is precisely why the hell not. In fact, I'm going to put out a bounty of sorts. If anyone can satisfactorily explain why Ampharos is a dragon, I'll give you some kind of reward. I'm going to go right ahead and say that the fact that his Japanese name translates to "Thunder Dragon" is not satisfactory. I'm willing to wager that they decided to name him that because he was a dragon. It seems unlikely that they decided to name it "dragon", then thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this thing were like, a dragon?" Also, Magikarp gets a free pass for turning into a dragon, because carp do turn into dragons in China, so it's all cool.

To summarize, Mega Evolutions made me pretty mad. 

This isn't your average, everyday mad. This is... butt mad.

Speaking of butts, did you know that Miley Cyrus has one of those? No one on the internet believed it until fairly recently, but there is now documented, empirical evidence to support this theory. I'm sure you're all thrilled to know this.



I think that time machines might be indelibly linked with telephones. Why do I think this? Well, there's the phone box time machine on my T-shirt that's being reflected onto my laptop screen as I type this, for one. Furthermore, of the 4 shows I can think of that heavily involve time travel, 3 have phones with special temporal abilities. Doctor Who is the most obvious one, and all three of the others are anime. Steins;Gate is about a mad scientist who somehow invents a cell phone that sends texts back in time, and Mirai Nikki (Future Diary) is about a bunch of people with diaries (Most of them are cell phones) that predict the future. They all have to kill each other. It's also about a girl who stalks the main character and attempts to kill his friends. The internet, and at least one person in real, actual life, finds this incredibly hot, for some reason. As for the anime with time travel that doesn't involve phones, it's kind of a spoiler that it involves time travel at all, so I won't name it. But I'll give you a hint: Seriously, I ain't spoiling it.



I actually learned an interesting thing on my first day of Theology, which is that, in Man of Steel, Superman is 33 years old. You know who else was 33 years old? That's right! The pope. Right up until the moment he turned 34 years old. But the real theological revelation came in Physics class, when I realized that Carbon-12, the most abundant isotope of the most important atom in organic, terrestrial life, has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons. That's right. You didn't need the Anti-Christ. The Number of the Beast was inside you all along!



And that's all I've got for you today, folks. I've withdrawn everything from my savings account at the word bank, so I must now depart, lest I be hounded by bookies who want to break my legs.

Scalded

As you probably haven't surmised from my too-clever-for-its-own-good title, I have been burned by Steam's summer sale, which I was excitedly raving about in just the last post. Now here I am, a week later (plus shipping and handling) and I find myself with about 70 fewer dollars, and about 20 more games, suspiciously few of which I am actually excited to play. Not included in that amount of dollars is the controller that I still need to purchase if I wish to play some of these games effectively. And on top of that, I need to buy Shin Megami Tensei IV for the sole purpose of registering it and Fire Emblem Awakening so I can get a $30 credit with which to buy Fire Emblem DLC And I guess I'll talk about it now? Is that what I do here? Jesus Christ

I've only played a small handful of the games I've purchased, and maybe a small fingerful of them have been played for any real length of time. Despite this, I think I already know enough to declare Recettear 2013's Steam Summer Sale MVP. As I briefly mentioned in the previous post, it is a game about running an item shop. The main character, Recette, is the result of a genetic experiment, conducted by The Professor from Nichijou to create a being even more cute than herself.

It was a landmark study in the correlation between ties and cuteness.

Well... while searching that picture, I noticed that one of the autocomplete options for "Recettear" was "Recettear 34". (This refers to the infamous "Rule 34 of the Internet", which states that there is porn of it. No exceptions) Needless to say, I found this stupendously distasteful. Then, when I searched, I saw it. It was there. In the top left corner of the screen, it showed images for "Recettear 34". So, when you see that image, just know that it was purchased with my soul.

Recette's father takes out a loan of almost one million Pix, (The currency used in the game) with the house as collateral, then disappears to go adventuring. A fairy named Tear shows up to collect on the loan, and Recette is forced to open up an item shop to pay off the debt, or else live in a box on the street. Recette, hilariously misunderstanding her relationship to this loan shark, names her shop a portmanteau of their two names that sounds an awful lot like "Racketeer". You buy low, sell high, and rent out thugs for paltry sums to kill stuff on your behalf, while making off with all the loot. Standard business stuff, really.

Recettear is by no means a perfect game. Sometimes I question whether or not it is even a good game. But it is certainly a fun game, a distinction I first appreciated upon answering the question "Is 999 a fun game?" with "Well, it's a good game". And to top it all off, it has a soundtrack that, while not terribly varied or complex, is quite excellent. All in all, getting 50 hours of gameplay out of $5 is a pretty impressive feat of shopping savvy, in my book.

The only other game I've really played too extensively is Cave Story+, which is different from Cave Story, because I paid money for it. It is, without a doubt, the best freeware game I have ever paid money to play. It's a retro style platformer-shooter reminiscent of the SNES era, and it was entirely made by one man, who goes by the pseudonym "Pixel", which is appropriate, because he would probably be made of money if he charged anything for this game. Actually, he might still be, considering all the paid versions that have been released.

This game has a character named Curly. Curly Brace. I think we're done here. And to make matters better, the game is abbreviated as "CS", which often stands for "Computer Science", which is a branch that uses curly braces. So if you're in the mood for a fun game with no cost to you, feel free to click here.

If, for some reason, that wasn't enough to convince you, I guess I could talk about the gameplay or whatever. Though I feel I should warn that this is easily one of the most frustrating games I've ever played, and I've played a lot of Mario Parties. Getting the true end without a walkthrough is damn near impossible. Not that I'd want to. The ending I got was harder than a diamond encrusted carbon nanotube, and I wasn't even playing on the most difficult setting. And if the true ending is any harder, (It absolutely is) then it would be harder than... look, I'm running out of comparisons here, but I just want to impart to you that it would be very, very hard.

As you might guess from the name, the game does have a story, and it's pretty good. It also has music, and it is some of the best, made all the more impressive by the fact that it was also all made by Pixel. It's also available for free, legal(?) download on the same website where you can download the game, so that's a pretty groovy thing.

The final game that I've finished, entirely in the time between starting this post and finishing it, is The Walking Dead. In general, one plays a zombie game with the expectation of gameplay that centers around killing zombies. The Walking Dead bravely subverts this expectation, with gameplay that consists mostly of watching people die and then feeling bad about it. It's like someone's attempt to make the Catholic Church into a video game. (DISCLAIMER: I go to a Catholic school, and I know about as much about Catholicism, and religion as a whole, as I do about writing concisely. If nothing else, it garnered a "x'D" out of my content manager, so feel free to blame her for any offense) The game is entirely unrelated to Cave Story, despite the similarity in mechanics. {Spoilers?}

Trust me, there's a joke to be found somewhere in all this.

 As Payton Knobeloch already said, The Walking Dead is a game about story, about slow pacing punctuated by frantic button-mashing, about losing everything you hold dear, and wondering why you don't even have enough left in you to hate the person who took it from you. Is it a fun game? Well... it's certainly a good game, perhaps making it a nice foil to Recettear up there. It is, more or less, a visual novel or adventure game, and as anyone who has read some of my earlier work can attest, I eat that shit up. So if you want a story-driven experience with interesting characters and choices, similar to the Zero Escape series, but are for some reason unwilling to play Japanese games, (At this point I'd like to give a shout-out to a man that I am arbitrarily referring to as "Bong Hardeners") then check it out.

And then there's Fez. I have... complicated feelings about Fez. After several days of my sister egging me on to play it, simply by virtue of the fact that fezzes are cool, (It seems she shares my love of references, for better or for worse) I played it, and I wasn't terribly impressed. Now, I wouldn't really say that Fez isn't a good game, but I'm not sure that I could say, in good conscience, that it is a fun game. Fez is a game about a 2D character who flips dimensions around to solve puzzles, in a way that sounds similar to Super Paper Mario, but is really quite different. And when it works, the gameplay is fantastic. The way that it defies our understanding of a three-dimensional space is pretty cool. That said, all the puzzles seemed to either have a difficulty of "just keep flipping stuff around, and you'll get it eventually" or "I'm quite convinced that, with the right tools, I could prove this to be mathematically impossible.", with nothing in between. It might be that I'm just too stupid to appreciate its genius, but I thought that it was just a pretty good game, not worthy of all the hype I heard. Then again, I still haven't finished it, and likely won't for awhile, so keep that in mind.

But the part of Fez that really whips my cream is the soundtrack. Now, you'll probably never catch me saying that a game has a bad soundtrack, but for some reason, it seems like every source I've seen is praising Fez to high heaven for its beautiful music. And yet, when I actually played the game, I noticed that I was spending a lot of time listening to nothing but the occasional sound of Gomez falling to his death. Well, maybe a bit more than occasional. The point is that, while you could say that the silence is an artistic choice meant to represent Gomez's loneliness and confusion, that doesn't make it a good soundtrack. And when there was music, it was often far from what I'd call "Listenin' Music" (I don't believe in the letter g). It mostly felt like ambient sound, meant to set a tone. And it did that well. If I'm being honest, most of Zero Escape's music was like that: Listening to it on its own is kind of dull. But I didn't praise 999 for its great music. Well, I guess I did, but... I had to come up with 9 reasons, and I couldn't come up with anything better. I think that charging $6.99 for this soundtrack is an outrage, because I don't believe in paying for things.

There are a few other games that I spent a bit of time with. I attempted to play Castle Crashers with my friend, foolishly believing that it seemed like a game that could conceivably be handled with a keyboard. I was surprised to find that they A, B, X, and Y buttons on the Xbox controller actually corresponded to the A, B, X, and Y keys on the keyboard, at least for the menu. Here's a fun experiment. Try putting your fingers on all of those keys. Done? Congratulations! Now go call a chiropractor. You have arthritis.

I also played Bastion for a bit, but not really for long enough to learn anything other than the fact that the narrator's voice is top-tier, which I had already known. The gameplay seemed pretty fun, if a bit challenging. Not much else to say.

I'm kind of running out of Steam here, (Hah! Get it?) so I guess I'll just wrap this thing up now. My Steam account username is the same as my blogger pseudonym, (Havoc Mantis, in case you hadn't noticed) so feel free to find me, if you're hankering for the companionship of internet strangers.

Steamy Birthday Surprise

If you came here looking for disappointment, prepare to be disappointed. Despite my expectations to the contrary, it seems that I have kept my promise to update today. Rather than going through the hassle of half-assing this post on my birthday, (It's the only fraction of assing that I'm capable of) I have opted to first write a draft of it on the day before posting with pencil and paper, like some kind of barbarian. The reason for this primordial technology is that I am currently in a car, on a road trip from “Sick Ruckus” to “Good Morning”, and due to a nasty combination of poor planning on my part and short laptop battery life, I have nothing better to do than scrawl my ramblings in layered carbon like some kind of damn, dirty ape.

I suppose a title like that warrants some kind of explanation. You see, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, sometimes the only adequate method of expressing their love involves razors, lasers, tazers, or some combination of the-- huh? Oh, right. It probably warrants a relevant explanation. You see, for the longest time, I never used Steam. I didn't know how dates work, so I couldn't get my debit card to work, no matter how much I wiped it on my jeans. And perhaps I was a better man for not using Steam. I mean, just a scant few days ago I read a Cracked article about how the author would just buy games on Steam, despite knowing he would hardly play them. Of course, I'd never have to worry about something like that. What kind of chump buys things just for the sake of buying them? (SPOILER ALERT: It's me. It is a Havoc Mantis Type Chump©. But I also might have accepted “Girl type chump”, depending on how misogynistic the audience is that night.)

So, let me tell you about a Type Havocmantis Chump (Abbreviated to “THC” from here on out). As you may know, Steam's summer sale started on the 11^th, and it is certifiably insane. No jury would convict this sale. Almost everything in their entire library of games (a library dwarfed only by Alexandria's) is at least 50% off. In addition, daily sales and 8 hour flash sales cut prices even deeper.

So here we are, two days in, and I've bought 8 games for a princely sum of about $18. The first game I bought, the one domino set off the sinister chain reaction that toppled my psyche, was Recettear: An Item Shop's tale. My friend always seemed like he was having all kinds of fun with it, and he said it was on sale, so I decided to check it out. Near as I can tell, it's an RPG, except instead of being an adventurer, it tells the story of the person behind the counter: The owner of those item shops that heroes love to frequent. I think there might also be adventures to commit, because shopkeepers have to get their wares somehow, and the world isn't ready for a game about graverobbing (but I'm willing to wait). The plot seems fairly similar to Animal Crossing, where buying a place saddles you with an enormous debt that you must spend the game paying off, except that this time, [FUTURE ME HAS DECIDED AGAINST MAKING THE JOKE THAT USED TO BE HERE]

There was an image to go with the joke, but I deleted it. I still need an image to break up the paragraphs, though.

EDIT: Oh man. This game, you guys. It may not be on sale as hard as it used to be, but at $8, it's still a steal. This game combines all the cuteness of the word "yayifications" with all the intensity and fun of paying the rent on time. If this sounds at all like a game you'd like to play, I'd highly recommend it. It describes drinking alcohol as being "Not entirely dissimilar to attempting to drink a tree". It is fun times on all fronts.

And all of that for just 5 bucks. Next, I bought a pair of games I've never heard of. Why? Because they were just $0.50. For the pair. Just to really make sure that everyone is pickin' up what I'm puttin' out: I purchased two games, and it cost me less than a single chicken wing from Buffalo Wild wings. A chicken wing that is also on sale, mind you. To top it off, they're adventure games, (In the vein of 999, Ace Attorney, and everything else I've been playing of late) self-described as being “like books, only good”. The names of the games are “Ben there, Dan that” and “Time Gentlemen, Please!” Puns? Gentlemen? Time Travel? Niceties? Sign me up!

After that, it was kind of a haze, so I'm not sure what order everything else came in. All I know is that once the dust cleared, I found myself owning Scribblenauts Unlimited, Bastion, Cave Story+, Hotline Miami, and an as-of-yet unquenched thirst for more games. Of course, no matter how cheap these games might be now, they'll end up costing a pretty penny when I have to buy a computer that can actually play them.

If you intend to get in on this action, here are some tips from a man who has no business giving advice: First off, set aside a certain amount of money that you intent to spend on the summer sale, (Ends June 22^nd!) and when that money runs out, stop buying games. This should prevent you from snowballing out of control with your spending and waking up in a ditch to find that your molars have been sold on the black market. Unless that kind of stuff happens to you regardless of your money situation, in which case I'm afraid I can't help you.

On top of that, it pays to be patient. The 10 day blanket sale is punctuated by shorter, more precise sales that offer even greater savings. By holding off on jumping a game you want right out of the gate, you might be able to catch it during a daily or flash sale, and save even more money, which you can then spend on even more games.

And I think that's about all I have to say about my newfound addiction. But before I go, I'd just like to give a big birthday shout-out to Patrick Stewart, Harrison Ford, and some guy named Hunter whose last name I don't remember, but I remember he was born on the same day as me. Have a good one, guys!

Man. All of these paragraphs seemed a lot longer when they were written out in graphite. And to lengthen this one just the tiniest bit, I'll mention that this is the 42^nd post on this blog, and I'm sure you guys all know what that means.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the rest of this car ride breeding Shroomish and having fun. And I'm all out of fun.

Screw Clever Titles: I'm Talking About Pokemon Stuff

For some reason, I've really got it in my head recently that I should try to update regularly. Whether or not this will actually happen is anyone's guess, but if it does, I guess I'll try to update once a week, or something like that. And since today's Saturday, I guess that might mean that Saturday is my tentative day for updating. So if you're a fan of disappointment, be sure to check back here next Saturday.

Of course, the problem with regular scheduling is that I have to write an entirely new post every week, which puts a major strain on my incredibly tight summer workload of playing adventure games, catching pneumonia, half-heartedly writing romance stories, and being too beta to steal my brother's job. But the biggest challenge of writing a new post every week is by far coming up with new things to write about. As I've reiterated many times before, I am terribly bad at thinking up things to talk about (half the time I end up talking about exactly that). So sometimes, I just decide "To hell with it: Pocket Monsters". This is one of those times. And it's definitely because I'm lazy, and not because I'm an attention-grubbing asshole who happened to notice that my first post about Pokemon managed to net more than double the views of any of my other posts.

Nothing too major has been announced that hasn't been discussed elsewhere on this blog, but a fair few Pokemon have been revealed that I could probably say some things about. The first is the most recent Pokemon to be announced, Honedge.

"Master, I predict a 70% chance that no one will get this joke."

As you can see, Honedge is a sword, as well as a name that kind of seems like it's trying to be a pun, but just isn't trying hard enough. And a sword is a pretty cool thing to be, as long as you try not to think too hard about how it gets around. Does it just float around while physics looks the other way, like a Geodude? Of course not! It's a ghost, so it probably floats around because it's a ghost. Nothing unreasonable about that. Premiering as the world's first Ghost/Steel type, this thing has a pretty mean defensive typing, which is pretty ironic for a Pokemon that is literally a weapon. It also ruins the opportunity for a Fighting/Dragon to come along and wreck everything with unresisted STABs. (Same Type Attack Bonus, referring to the 50% bump in power that comes when an attack's type is the same as a Pokemon that uses it. So a Fighting/Dragon's STABs would be Fighting and Dragon.) It does nothing, however, to change the fact that a Fighting Dragon would cooler than Kyogre's OHKO move, so Gamefreak should still make one posthaste.

This thing is a panda that fights. It's pure fighting, but I'd say there's at least a chance it'll evolve a Grass secondary typing, or perhaps a Dark typing, with that attitude it's clearly sporting. It's name is "Pancham", which I have no strong feelings about one way or the other. What's really important about this Pokemon, though, is a new move that it learns, "Parting Remark". I'm about to talk about some high-level concepts in Pokemon theory, so you may want to step outside if things get too hot and heavy. Parting Remark is similar to U-turn or Volt Switch, in that it is a move that forces the user to switch out. However, instead of doing damage, it lowers the opponent's Attack and Special Attack. I'm honestly not that good at Pokemon. And even the top minds in the field have difficulty accurately predicting what Pokemon and moves will impact the metagame. But it seems to me like this could be a Big Deal. If properly used, this move could allow a player to safely bring in a setup sweeper against a weakened enemy. While the enemy is all but forced to switch out, the player gets a free turn to boost his Pokemon's stats. (With moves like Swords Dance, Quiver Dance, Calm Mind, and an assortment of other moves that you probably never used when playing the actual game.) I earlier compared it to U-turn, but it's actually more like Memento, an oft-forgot move with a similar effect except that it harshly lowered the enemy's offenses, and instead of switching the user out, it straight up killed them. I can't say for sure that this will revolutionize Offensive playstyles in Pokemon battling, but if it does, just know that I totally called it. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me and reading that whole rant. As a reward, here's a really good and funny song that isn't terribly safe for work.

The new generation has a bird Pokemon. It is Normal/Flying. It is based on a robin. I thought of using this as the basis of a "Holy ______, Batman!" joke, but decided against it. There is nothing remarkable about a new Normal/Flying bird, because there's one in every generation. What is remarkable, however, is what it evolves into...

Talonflame, the Pokemon whose name fully convinced me that the death of Pokemon's creativity is nigh. As you may have guessed from its flame decals, it is a Flying/Fire type. And it looks like Gamefreak did its homework for this one, because those flames clearly allow it to go a lot faster: 310 mph, which is about the speed at which a nerve impulse travels. This means that if a Talonflame flew straight through you length-wise, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, by the time the signals registering pain from your feet reached your brain, your entire body would be immolated. It is for this reason that death by Talonflame is considered the most humane method of execution in the Pokemon universe. Unfortunately, despite it's fearsome appearance and award-winningly badass classification as the "Deterioration Pokemon", Gamefreak decided to set it apart from the rest of the generic birds by giving it the worst possible secondary typing. With a double weakness to Stealth Rock, this thing can bank on losing a good half of its HP whenever it switches in. In competitive battling circles, this kind of Pokemon is referred to as a "pizza". Pizza shit.

This Pokemon is called "Gogoat", and you've probably seen it, because OMG gaiz, you can totes ride Pokemon nao! I mean, you could before, but that was only when you were soaring through the skies, or effortlessly crossing large bodies of water. Now you can ride Pokemon in all the places that you can walk, which is clearly more exciting. Also, since this Pokemon clearly exists only for riding, and its combat abilities merit no discussion, I might as well take this opportunity to say that the Pokemon you ride aren't actually yours. You don't teach them an HM move or anything. You rent other people's Pokemon in order to ride them around. Because Pokemon totally isn't like slavery, you guys. We addressed that in the last game, remember?

Helioptile is another case of a Pokemon too stupid looking to not be given a Normal type. I guess the name is kind of OK, at least until you try to pronounce it out loud. As the name suggests to those of us familiar with  Greek roots, Helioptile is a reptile capable of photosynthesis, but totally different from every grass starter for every previous generation. Much like Pancham, Helioptile learns a notable new move, Parabola Charge. Despite taking the name of Parabola in vain, it's actually a pretty neat move. It's basically an electric typed Giga Drain. While Electric Pokemon usually aren't thought of as being too bulky, there are a few outliers. Washing Machine Rotom, who is already a top tier threat, probably stands the most to gain, as it is a bulky electric type that struggles to heal itself, and often only has Volt Switch as an electric attack. Parabola Charge could solve all of its problems, giving it a reliable electric attack, while also giving it a decent way to heal outside of Pain Split.

And for this generation's caterpillar bug pokemon, we have... Jesus Christ! Oh, sorry, I just lost my composure there for a second. The next Pokemon to carry on the heritage of Caterpie and Wurmple is not Jesus of Nazareth, though the truth might just be stranger. It's Scatterbug, which looks like it just dropped in to say hi on its way from some kind of horrific torture porn directly to your nightmares. In addition, its classification is the "Powder Blowing Pokemon", which, to me, is just aching for a cocaine joke.

And these are the Pokemon that Scatterbug evolves into, Spewpu and Vivillion. Besides the unmatched grossness of Spewpa's name, there isn't much to remark on. They're not as creepy as Scatterbug, but I still think there's something a little off about Vivillion. And Spewpu doesn't seem nearly crusty enough to be an intermediary between a crawling bug and a flying bug.

No, its eyes are actually placed right behind its nose, in an arrangement that does not seem very evolutionarily sound. That was the answer to the question that I'm sure you all asked, which is "Dear God in heaven, are those thing's eyes inside out?!" The "eyes" on Noivern's face seem to be membranes that it uses to hear, because that's totally what bats do, and it's probably a good thing that Bruce Wayne didn't try to emulate this. Noivern is a Dragon/Flying Pokemon with a pretty decent design, once you get past the freakish eye things. Next Pokemon.

Oh Gods, not this guy again. I've said everything I care to say about this thing. Next Pokemon.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took a Kingler, removed its ability to feel anything but hate, and changed it to an entirely different species? (A water gun, if the classification is to be believed) You'd probably get something pretty closed to Clauncher, who probably has the best name of any Pokemon revealed so far, though it's honestly not a tight competition. It actually might be my favorite Pokemon so far. There's just something magical about how legitimately pissed off it looks.

Using masterful camouflage, Skrelp disguises itself as a piece of kelp by making itself look like nothing of this Earth. Seriously, this thing could pose more convincingly as a Lovecraftian Horror than any kind of plant life. Also, while I understand that Pokemon are color coded for your convenience, being purple to indicate that you're poisonous is not a good business strategy for blending in. If I had to guess what this looked like, I'd say it kind of resembles an artist's rendition of a banana that was left in the refrigerator of The Bebop for too long. 

And for the last Pokemon of this post, we have Flabébé, the only Pokemon that I know of with accents in its name (Other than, you know, the actual word "Pokémon"). Flabébé is apparently the new smallest Pokemon, a recognition it won by swearing that the flower totally isn't part of its body. It's one of those new Fairy types you've probably heard so much about, and there seems a decent chance it'll snatch up a grass type when it evolves. It apparently comes with a variety of different colored flowers, making it kind of like Gastrodon and Basculin in terms of having differently colored sprites that aren't shiny. That stamen in the middle looks vaguely dirty, but you didn't hear it from me.

And that's just about all I have to say. I wanted to give this post a proper conclusion, so it didn't seem like I just quit as soon as I ran out of things to talk about, but I'm afraid that's exactly what happened.

Keeping House

Hey, there! As you've probably noticed, I've changed this blog's formatting, to celebrate the official blog colors, "grey" and "dark grey" (Massive points to anyone who can catch the reference I think I'm making). Unless you're new here. Or you're seeing this while browsing the archive, in which case, Hello, future Havoc! You're probably the only one who does that, you narcissistic little shit! So, have you finally become a productive member of society? No? Thank goodness. I'm glad I have such a convenient method of sending messages back in time.

Who needs readers when I have inside jokes?

As you can plainly see, (assuming I haven't changed my formatting again since the time you're reading this) my new formatting is as boring as possible. It's basically just all my text to one side, with some widgets on the other side. I also added a few neat little things, like a description, a search bar, and a public display of how many total views I have, as well as a neat little graph showing recent fluctuations in pageviews. I think I may have also fixed the problem of some of my posts sporadically changing fonts, and it was a travesty that I let such foolishness continue for so long. However, none of this formatting has chanced the actual content, so there's no need to fear that my posts will all of a sudden start making sense.

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.