2000

2000 used to be a futuristic sounding number, but now if somebody was born in the year 2000 they're old enough to be a misogynistic gamer-gate troll on some internet forum. If somebody gave me $2000 I would like it but to be fair if somebody gave me $2 I would also like that, or, really, I would appreciate any gift because it's the thought that counts. If you have a blog it might take you 10 months to write your first 1000 posts but then it would probably take you another six years to write your next thousand, but at least 800 people a month are still accidentally stumbling across your hodge-podge of time-wasting reviews (shoulda monetized back in 07, rats!).

RATING: Glenn, Loco, Nick, Laurie, Bryan, Internet John, Viking Andrew, Loren, Evan, Robyn, Ryan, Quammy %

Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan

A Beer For Every State #5 - Mississippi

In honor of Lazy Magnolia, here's a lazy review:

The big selling point is that this beer is made with, and tastes like pecans.

This beer doesn't really taste like pecans.

Oil spill joke.

More fail from Mississippi!

RATING: 62% (it is beer!)

Heavy Seas Gold Ale

A Beer For Every State #2 - Maryland

As part of Glenn's excellent "A Beer For Every State" series, I will be helping out by providing reviews of beers from weird states, or perhaps beers that I happen to get in the mail or while traveling or from a store. Hence, Maryland's Heavy Seas Golden Ale, brewed in Baltimore, and the (not really) official beer of the only football team named after a poem.

Like the state in which it is brewed, this beer is boring as hell, and relatively nondescript. If you have a friend who likes Bud Light or somesuch, they will also like this. If you like extra-malty, extra-hoppy, or fascinating flavors in your beer, you will probably drink this if you don't have anything else, and not be upset. (Caveat: unless you are drinking BECAUSE you are upset - then you are completely out of luck.) At any rate, what it lacks in flavor, it makes up for in being mildly pirate themed and woefully difficult to acquire outside of the greater Baltimore area.

Verily, much like the postman, I come late and I deliver in disappointment.

RATING: 51%

" ' ' 'GQ Rates 'America's 25 Douchiest Colleges,' Forgets Subscription Demographics' ' ' "

Baudrillard.

Disgaea 3

Disgaea 3 is the third in the series of Disgaea games - which are Japanese turn-based strategy games for Playstation. The central conceit of the game is that there are several netherworlds, and...you know what, explaining the central conceit of a game like this just makes it seem sillier than it already is. Maybe I should try explaining that it's an extraordinarily simple game that you can drop hundreds and hundreds of hours into in order to try and level your characters up to level 9999 and defeat the difficult post-game enemies...nope, that's not any better.

How about this: the game's graphics are not good, the comedy is simple, but it's extremely engrossing and fun, and I've probably dumped 200 some-odd hours into the game over the last half-year. Looking back on it, I'm always a little regretful that I've spent so much time playing a tremendously goofy video game instead of doing something more productive, but really, what else would I have done?

RATING: 87% (which means that it's better than the poster for Rachel Getting Married, but worse than Action Moves)

The New R3 Logo

Seeing this is the crowning achievement of my life. Please can we keep it?!

On only a marginal aside, a Darkhawk/Satan buddy cop movie would complete my life on so many levels.

An excerpt:

EXT. CONVENIENCE STORE, EVENING

(DARKHAWK and SATAN stand over JOHNNY TUNICCIO'S CORPSE)

SATAN: In all my years on the force, I've never seen anything like this.

DARKHAWK: I'm a series of cliches, wrapped up in some weird early-90's art.

SATAN: You're right...we can't tell the Chief. We're going to have to settle this on our own, and before this is over, we may have to turn in our badges.

DARKHAWK: Does anyone know who I am?

SATAN: Let's punch it, DH...I've gotta be back in Hell by midnight.

RATING: 99% (just about perfect)

(image courtesy of Glenn, I assume)

Nintoaster

I'd definitely like to write something pithy about how this really makes a powerful statement about commercialization, postmodernism, America, or obesity. Frankly, this is far, far too awesome. The next step is trying to mod a Super Mario Brothers 3 catridge into an English muffin.

This really just opens up a larger discussion about what the next thing to mod in terms of video games and food. I'm partial to a Playstation3 embedded in an enormous wheel of cheese.

RATING: 89% (which means that it's better than an old pencil with an eraser on the end, but worse than a new pencil with an eraser on the end)

(image courtesy of engadget.com)

Final Crisis

Firstly, there are no spoilers here. Secondly, I've been told that there's a fine line between genius and madness. Unfortunately, in the case of Final Crisis, someone has erased it. This was the total antipodal-opposite of decompressed storytelling. It's like someone writing a smart, funny, cognizant review on this website, except they used only SAT words and left out all the vowels. Sure, a few people died, heaven and hell, earth and time were redefined and blended, but what it really showed me was that with his taste for frenetic pace and the weird, Grant really, really, really should write an awesome Flash title, where everything gets good and fast and weird. Final Crisis was everything - good, bad, and ugly - all at once, all the time.

At any rate, I feel like I have descended into an orrery of words (not worlds!) and icons and fifty years of superheroics have been chopped into confetti and blown over a Macy's Day parade running in reverse.

RATING: 62% (but in actuality, ihavenoidea%)

(image courtesy of comicvine.com)

Spaghetti

You know spaghetti. It doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste especially good. Whenever Sarah and I can't come up with anything else to eat, or we want to make something that requires very little effort and is cheap, we make spaghetti with a jarred red sauce and ground turkey. With just a tiny bit more creativity (let's swap spaghetti noodles for gnocchi! how about adding spinach?) it wouldn't be quite so boring. But it also wouldn't be quite as easy. You know, like your mother.

It is the plain vanilla ice cream of dinners.

It is mediocrity.

It is the moon.

RATING: 50% (this means that it is better than Crisis on Infinite Earths, but worse than Changin' Tires on the Road to Ruin)

ALTERNATE ENDING: Here

(image courtesy of plus.maths.org)

Vince Offer

Infomercials are absolutely bizarre and strangely compelling, and the new kid on the block is spazzy douche Vince Offer. You may know him as "that jerk with the headset selling ShamWow." I know him as THE FUTURE. Yeah, so he's a former Scientologist also known for making a (reportedly) awful movie. He sold his bad movie through infomercials? Is he a genius or a moron? Yes? What kind of world do we live in? Spoiler alert - I own four ShamWows. I know, I am America.

Anyways, if you haven't seen the ShamWow or SlapChop infomercials, I think Seth Stevenson said it best when he said Vince possesses "smooth-talking condescension". I wish I was that insightful, but more than that, I wish I had that headset and sense of delusion that V.O. (that's what I call him) seems to possess. I can't decide if I want to punch him in the mouth or give him twenty-five dollars. And I think that's the idea.

RATING: 61% (which means that he's better than Fire & Ice (or The Cutting Edge 4), but worse than loving Bob Seger)

(image courtesy of mmo-champion.com?)

Fable II

Fable II is generally regarded as a pretty awesome video game, and as someone who likes pretty awesome video games, I was happy to make it my first purchase for my new XBox 360. What I didn't know: Fable II is like a cross between Diablo and The Sims, and certainly not as awesome as many people make it out to be. There are also a couple of truly, almost game-breakingly annoying things for me: (1) it substitutes plot for story, which I find just about unforgivable in an RPG (2) no one in the game appears to talk to you or really look you (you meaning your stupid emotionless avatar) in the face. If this happened in real life...oh wait it does happen in real life, but that's not the point.

Frankly, if I wanted to become a real estate maganate, slaughter innocent townspeople, and have bad aim during surprise encounters with curious beasts - well, I'd send away for one of those infomercial info-kits and start getting involved in adjustable rate mortgages. In Texas.

RATING: 45% (which means that its better than the jump-in-the-air-profile-photo, but MUCH worse than Fallout 3, which there's no review for, but trust me on this)

(P.S. - The gambling minigames are truly awesome, and I only wish a casino would be smart enough to institute a couple of them as a one-off deal. I'm looking at you, Snoqualmie!)

Frost/Nixon

I'm not in my 40's, I wasn't around during Watergate, and Nixon was dead by the time I was 12. That having been said, I thought that this was a pretty cool movie, and that Frank Langella pulled off one of the more remarkable film characters I've seen in a while. He played Nixon with gravitas, power, and sympathy...and he shook his jowls and fired off peace signs like you wouldn't believe.

As a whole, I liked the movie's cast a lot - it's hard to go wrong with Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt in the supporting roles, and Michael Sheen was fun to watch as super-optimist David Frost. And even though there weren't any explosions, car chases, or super-heroes, I got really worked up at the points in the movie where you're supposed to get worked up...which is kind of the idea behind dramas like this, I think. Anyways, it was great, and I'm looking forward to the sequel, "Frost/Nixon 2: Laser Swordfight".

RATING: 91% (which means that its better than Burn After Reading, but worse than Orange Juice)

(image courtesy of wikipedia, dude)

$1 Amazing Cocaine Flavored Doom

COMBINATION!

RATING: 22%

(photo courtesy of trains)

Senorita (EP) by Superdrag

Senorita is (chronologically) the second "important" Superdrag EP (behind The Fabulous 8-Track Sound of Superdrag). Five tracks, and, to be honest, the only one that matters at all is the first song and title track, which is a great song. The rest of the EP feels a little more like filler...generally speaking, all of the tracks run a little formulaic, and Nothing Good Is Real, well, was better as an album track, when it grows up a little. But while (the song) Senorita is total classic good John Davis songcraft the EP loses points on both quality and quantity.

On an aside, I really wish I could figure out how to add the tilde-n on this blog thing. Technology sux.

RATING: 48% (which is better than Arkansas, but worse than pizza)

Gator Sushi

Only in Florida, could you go to a sushi restaurant, and have the option to order sushi from the most delicious of water reptiles, the alligator.

I'd never eaten any form of gator before, but apparently, it should be deep-fried in tempura batter, then wrapped in rice, seaweed, scallions, and smelt roe. Slightly spicy, and tasting a bit like chicken, only stringier and gamy-er. It's not, uh, GOOD like tuna sushi, but it's not bad. When Steve Irwin spread his message of conversationism and stupidly wrestling dangerous animals, I believe this was the ultimate end he had in mind.


RATING: 55% (which means that its better than The Duggars, but worse than the twenty-fifth amendment)

(image courtesy of PenguinDisco)

Magician: Apprentice

This is (so far) the worst book I've read this year and the worst high fantasy novel I've ever read. It's not like this book is deliberately offensive, or the like, but it's just not very good. There's no craft or style to the prose, the plot is dull, and the end of the book neither pays any attention to the main character, nor is it...uh...interesting. It's abjectly boring. I only finished it in the hopes that it would get better, and it didn't.

RATING: 16% (which means that it is better than Lake Erie, and worse than Lake Huron)

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

This comic book had every opportunity to be truly awful. Consider the following factors: non-comic writer from an emo-esque band (Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance), obvious influence (from Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol), low-end marketing campaign (compared to Big 2), and artist I am not at all familiar with (Gabriel Ba).

Well, it was less truly awful, and more good - I have absolutely no idea how this happened.

There's absolutely no question that this was put together by someone who loves Grant Morrison, but the characters were clever (and surprisingly sympathetic), the art was evocative, and most of all, it didn't come across as a fan letter written by a fan, it was a legitimate piece of work by someone who has a lot of love and respect for the medium.

In closing, if you like weirdish superhero comics, I have no reason to believe you won't like this book, or the upcoming miniseries (Dallas).

RATING: 74% (which means that it is better than The Birthday Bat, but worse than Frank Miller on Daredevil)

Pasadena by Ozma

Ozma is a band that used to get compared to Weezer a lot, but now no one cares (about either band, I think). Except I like them (both), and Ozma's gone a little more towards synthesizers, more complex song structure, and multiple vocals. I don't know how other people feel about this album, but I like it, or more accurately, I like the first half of it. The best song (musically) on this album is Heartache vs. Heartbreak, and I'd totally link to the YouTube video of them playing it live, but I just watched it, and it's not worth it - the album track is much better than that crappy video. Thanks YouTube.

RATING: 64% (which means that it's better than a magazine, but worse than Supreme Power Volume 1)

Starbucks

Coffee's pretty good, I guess. Now that I live in the greater Seattle area, I'm supposed to love things like coffee, the environment, Alice in Chains, and rain. Anyways, if you've never heard of Starbucks before, its a mildly exploitative coffee shop with about six million locations, including one within walking distance of my apartment. Their espresso tastes a little overroasted (disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about), and I like their mochas slightly less than those from places like L.A. Burdick, but more than Seattle's Best (name = lie). Anyways, this review is completely redundant, because you know all about Starbucks so goodbye.

RATING: 57% (which is better than Captain Planet and the Planeteers but worse than Chris's magnificent teeth)

ALTERNATE ENDING: Here.

(image courtesy of AppleInsider)

Changin' Tires On The Road To Ruin by Superdrag

(Preface: I like Superdrag a lot and as such, I've decided I'm going to review all of their albums. I apologize in advance.)

Superdrag is a totally jangly rock band of awesome, and (technically) this is their most recent album, being a collection of unreleased tracks collected by Arena Rock Recording Company. As a collection of C-sides, early demos, and two live tracks, you can't expect to find their best work on here...however, a few tracks spring up as diamonds in the rough cuts. 'Relocate My Satellites' is driven hard by the rhythm section with great pacing and 'Here We Come' is a short, straightforward primer on the Superdrag sound. 'No Inspiration' sounds like a love letter to simple 60's rock. Oh, and lyrically, its still heads and shoulders above 90% of modern American rock music.

Weaknesses are songs like 'Doctors Are Dead' (not their best slow jam) and the demo version of 'Keep It Close to Me' (the demo lacks the drama and intensity of the album track).

As far as things go, it lacks some of the polish of full-length Superdrag albums like Head Trip In Every Key and In The Valley of Dying Stars, but Superdrag doesn't usually suffer from lack of production.

Because this is a review of a Superdrag album, people who know me very well will probably assume that I'll rate it highly.

Both of those people are right.

RATING: 78% (which means that it is better than the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and worse than Herr's Heinz Ketchup Chips)