This'll be a super short one, just something kinda funny I thought of.
When I was little, maybe 6 or so, I had a toy set called Playskool Pipeworks that I LOVED. I think I had the the Pipeworks 2000: Big Builders Set. Basically it was a set of white tubes and connector pieces that you'd use to make appropriate child-size furniture, forts, wheelbarrows, etc. It was fantastic. The instruction manual was the same for the 1000, 2000, and 3000 sets, and I was always wishing I had the parts to build the items that were in the 3000 set only. Pipeworks 3000 reached this mythic status in my young brain, a Holy Grail of toys.
Now, I was raised more-or-less Catholic by my parents, Steven and Diane Thirty, in that I attended CCD weekly, but usually didn't actually go to mass. I did eventually go to a Catholic high school. My parents, they're both Catholic, but in a pretty loose sense of the word, not like Nonnie (the late and very missed Mary Lebowski), who I think would've fought the Python at Delphi to get to church if she had to (and she, like Indiana Jones, hated snakes). In any event, at a young age I fully believed in such concepts as Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, etc... although I tended to imagine them in whatever way seemed fun or interesting to me, Catholic dogma be damned. (It was only a hop, skip, and jump to full blown apostasy and agnosticism! What up, present day?)
I remember more or less vividly a conversation I once had with my beloved uncle Hulka at that young age. I was curious about Heaven, just what it was like. I figured Hulka knew a lot of things, maybe he knew what was so great about this Heaven place. He told me that anything I ever wanted and anyone I ever loved was there. That sounded pretty good, but I needed to know more.
"Hulka, do they have Pipeworks in Heaven?"
"If you like Pipeworks, they have Pipeworks."
Whoa.
"Hulka! Hulka! Do they have Pipeworks 3000!?"
I was totally unprepared for what would come next.
"Remus, they have Pipeworks 1,000,000."
I think my brain exploded. Could. Not. Process. The. Awesome. I couldn't do this math in my head then, but Hulka, in a sentence, in an INSTANT, took the greatest thing I could imagine and improved it by 33,233.33%. That is a return on investment you don't often see, my friends.
Showing posts with label Childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Childhood. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Maybe 1 Person Will Find This Interesting (And That's Rounding Up)
When I was in 3rd grade, I got a very special birthday gift from a very special uncle. That uncle was Hulka, whom you may remember from, uh, like every other post on this blog. That gift was a Nintendo Game Boy. I remember it now: the olive green screen, the gray brick-like shape and weight, the mountains of batteries it killed... I loved that Game Boy. I loved it for years and years.
My cousin Sarah Thirty had gotten one about a year before me, and had a few games. So, naturally, we'd trade and try each others' games out. One game in particular that she had stood out to me. The label on the cartridge had a picture of a sword on it. And the gameplay... holy crap, it was like Zelda! It was like Zelda, but with more weapons besides swords, and with partners who followed you around! This game blew my mind. It was called Final Fantasy Adventure. Sarah didn't particularly care for it, she had too much trouble finding Bogard at the falls (the first objective). When I found ol' Bogard, she was impressed and offered to let me borrow the game for a while, since I seemed to be more into it than her. I played that game like an obsessed madman until I finally had to give it back. I needed more. I begged my parents for the next gift-giving holiday to include a copy of Final Fantasy for Game Boy. I got my wish on Christmas. I got double my wish.
Unbeknownst to me, there was more than one Final Fantasy for Game Boy. On that Christmas morning, I shredded wrapping paper to find not just Final Fantasy Adventure (the green box one), but Final Fantasy Legend II (the blue box one). Also Jeopardy! which I found difficult to type answers for using a D-Pad and two buttons, and played maybe 5 times. (Still, 2 out of 3 were and are all-time classic favorite games, so thanks Mom & Dad!) So Final Fantasy Adventure was a known quantity, and I focused my attentions on it first. And I played the hell out of it. I took a few minutes to try starting up Legend II, but it didn't play at all like Adventure. I couldn't use any weapons, and instead of enemies showing up on the screen, I'd walk around and the screen would flash and go to a "battle screen" where I'd have to choose my actions from menus. What the hell? Back to Adventure, the Zelda-style action-RPG. Eventually though, I found my way back to trying "the blue one" for real.
Reader, I married him. ... Yes, I just quoted the book I hate more than just about any book I was ever forced to read. I love(d) this game THAT MUCH.
This is the game that cut my teeth on RPG turn based battles, and what a long strange trip it's been since that point. But this game was SO NEAT in SO MANY WAYS. To start, you pick your character from a list of 8 character types: a male and female Human, a male and female Mutant, a Robot (a freaking robot!), and three different Monsters. Each type of character plays differently, and within moments you get to choose 3 characters from the same list to round out to a team of 4. You can double/triple/quadruple up, too. Lots of combinations to try!
So to run the types down, Humans are a basic character type. They use items and weapons and get stronger by participating in battles (I learned the hard way that this means running from as many battles as possible means you have weak-ass humans by not far into the game). Mutants also get stronger by battling, but more slowly than humans. This is offset by the fact that they randomly learn up to 4 special abilities, which are either innate (like preventing enemies from sneak attacking) or rechargeable (like fire magic). The rechargeable thing is important because weapons have finite uses before "breaking". So the male human's starting sword, for example, gets 50 uses before it's gone. That mutants have abilities that can recharge by staying at an Inn is a real economizer.
Robots (and can I just tell you how effing delighted I was at that age to have a robot on my team!?) grew in a really neat way. Equipping weapons and armor to robots increased their raw stats. They didn't need to battle to get strong, they just needed to hold your best stuff. And when they equipped weapons, the number of uses remaining got halved (ouch!) but they could recharge at an Inn, just like mutants' abilities. So instead of 50 shots from the basic gun of the game, I got infinite shots, but no more than 25 before needing to recharge. Again, this was a real economizer and made rare one-or-two-in-the-whole-game items stick around much longer.
Monsters grew in an even more interesting way. The monsters you could have on your team were the same as the enemy monsters of the game. Same stats, same abilities, everything. Basically whenever you fought a monster, there was a chance it would leave behind its meat (somehow, even skeletons, ghosts, flowers, and viruses [amongst others] left meat). Eating that meat transformed your monster into a new monster (through a complex table that is unexplained in the game and confused me to no end as a kid). It wasn't foolproof, but generally eating a stronger monster's meat made your monster transform into a better one. Learning certain patterns in this meant you could wind up with a monster on your team several worlds ahead of the ones you were fighting. This kicked an ass or twelve.
Uhhh, is it clear I was really into this game? The story was pretty awesome for a Game Boy game. Basically there was a network of worlds all connected to one larger "Celestial World" by giant pillar-like vines. You'd go from world to world solving crises and looking for shards of a statue of an ancient goddess, trying to track down your lost father. Various non-player characters would join your team temporarily (including that selfsame father!) as the story required. Usually they were awesome help in battles.
Here comes my favorite part about it all. I was a mythology nut as a kid, and I still love those stories. This game weaved several world mythologies into itself. You're not the only one looking for the pieces of the ancient goddess statue. New Gods, seeking to bolster their own growing power are on the hunt as well. I hadn't heard of Ashura before, but Venus? Yeah, I'd heard of her. Odin? Yeah. Apollo? Check. (I guess technically his pre-translation name was Apollyon, the Greek spelling of Abaddon, the demon of christian mythology, but as far as I knew, it was Apollo, Greek/Roman light god). This game required me to KILL GODS. Not just made-up, in-game gods. These were gods I'd heard of. Even the final-stage monsters were gods or epic legendary monsters. And the ones I hadn't heard of, I was so curious about! It gave me tons of leads to learn more about different mythologies.
Good lord did I love this game. At one point I was even working on the novelization of the game. OK, it was fan-fiction, but really, this was pre-internet and I didn't realize this would eventually be commonplace and ridiculed. So yeah, after my initial obsession with it, I'd still go back and replay it every few years. The advent of the internet shed light on all the hidden mechanics of the game for me to go back and retry. ("Ohhh, so this is how to know ahead of time what monster I'll transform to!") I've long lost the cartridge, and even if I hadn't, by now I don't have that old Game Boy, or any player compatible with it. But by George there are emulators now! And I'll be damned if FFLII wasn't one of the first ROMs I downloaded when I learned about emulators (and no, it's not even gray area illegal, since I owned the game legally before downloading. Well, THIS game anyway...).
Now, nostalgia put away, it wasn't a perfect game. There's a lot of game mechanics that really should be better explained in-game, but aren't. Some things are glitchy. I mean, it happens. Such is the nature of older games and their limited programming space. But there are other issues, such as gameplay balancing. There are too many abilities, particularly monster attacks, that are clones of other abilities, just with different names, leading to very little actual meaningful variety between early-game monsters. And a lot of the monsters are just plain useless compared to others. Rotate between the fairy, eye, medusa, ghost, and maybe slime classes and you're all set. It's nice to know how to power through the game, but it lacks variety. Human and mutant stat growth is random and slow. So yeah, flaws.
About a year or two ago, Square-Enix announced a Nintendo DS fully enhanced rebuild of this game. I was PSYCHED. I sifted through the internet for information, images, music from the new release. Seeing my old pixelated monochrome buddies in color and 3D filled me with oddly powerful nostalgia. The Japanese release came and went. Surely they'd announce the US release soon. Surely. ...surely?
... please?
Still no word on if that'll ever happen (I still hope it does). But two very interesting things have happened for me and this game recently. 1) I got an Evo 4G. It runs Android. Android has an app store. The app store has emulators. Miss Susie went to Heaven, the Steamboat went to... um, anyway. After years of having to play this game boy classic chained to a desk (WHAT IS THIS COMUNISTS RUSHIA AM I RITE?), I can take this game handheld, like it was meant to be played. 2) There are a few folks on the internet who apparently loved this game as much as me. Actually more. And they have programming skills. I just downloaded a hacked, patched version of the game that seems to fix most of the flaws, adds variety and difficulty, and even does cosmetic touches like allowing longer names (originally 4 characters max).
I am back on that Christmas morning, with my brand new Game Boy Final Fantasy. The other, blue one. A whole new, harder version of the game I've loved for years awaits me. It is new and old, mingled together. Nostalgia and novelty. ... Why yes, I am 27, chubby, and single, why do you ask?
I know I rambled on this one, guys. To those of you who read this blog for funny stories (80% of my readers, or 1.6 people, if you do the math out), I apologize. Actually, you probably stopped reading several walls of text ago and I can say awful terrible things about you, your mother, and other loved ones. But I wont. To the remaining 0.399 of you who stuck through this, thanks for bearing with me! And to the 0.001 of you who can relate, or maybe even loved this game yourself... let's hang out and be best buds forever.
My cousin Sarah Thirty had gotten one about a year before me, and had a few games. So, naturally, we'd trade and try each others' games out. One game in particular that she had stood out to me. The label on the cartridge had a picture of a sword on it. And the gameplay... holy crap, it was like Zelda! It was like Zelda, but with more weapons besides swords, and with partners who followed you around! This game blew my mind. It was called Final Fantasy Adventure. Sarah didn't particularly care for it, she had too much trouble finding Bogard at the falls (the first objective). When I found ol' Bogard, she was impressed and offered to let me borrow the game for a while, since I seemed to be more into it than her. I played that game like an obsessed madman until I finally had to give it back. I needed more. I begged my parents for the next gift-giving holiday to include a copy of Final Fantasy for Game Boy. I got my wish on Christmas. I got double my wish.
Unbeknownst to me, there was more than one Final Fantasy for Game Boy. On that Christmas morning, I shredded wrapping paper to find not just Final Fantasy Adventure (the green box one), but Final Fantasy Legend II (the blue box one). Also Jeopardy! which I found difficult to type answers for using a D-Pad and two buttons, and played maybe 5 times. (Still, 2 out of 3 were and are all-time classic favorite games, so thanks Mom & Dad!) So Final Fantasy Adventure was a known quantity, and I focused my attentions on it first. And I played the hell out of it. I took a few minutes to try starting up Legend II, but it didn't play at all like Adventure. I couldn't use any weapons, and instead of enemies showing up on the screen, I'd walk around and the screen would flash and go to a "battle screen" where I'd have to choose my actions from menus. What the hell? Back to Adventure, the Zelda-style action-RPG. Eventually though, I found my way back to trying "the blue one" for real.
Reader, I married him. ... Yes, I just quoted the book I hate more than just about any book I was ever forced to read. I love(d) this game THAT MUCH.
This is the game that cut my teeth on RPG turn based battles, and what a long strange trip it's been since that point. But this game was SO NEAT in SO MANY WAYS. To start, you pick your character from a list of 8 character types: a male and female Human, a male and female Mutant, a Robot (a freaking robot!), and three different Monsters. Each type of character plays differently, and within moments you get to choose 3 characters from the same list to round out to a team of 4. You can double/triple/quadruple up, too. Lots of combinations to try!
So to run the types down, Humans are a basic character type. They use items and weapons and get stronger by participating in battles (I learned the hard way that this means running from as many battles as possible means you have weak-ass humans by not far into the game). Mutants also get stronger by battling, but more slowly than humans. This is offset by the fact that they randomly learn up to 4 special abilities, which are either innate (like preventing enemies from sneak attacking) or rechargeable (like fire magic). The rechargeable thing is important because weapons have finite uses before "breaking". So the male human's starting sword, for example, gets 50 uses before it's gone. That mutants have abilities that can recharge by staying at an Inn is a real economizer.
Robots (and can I just tell you how effing delighted I was at that age to have a robot on my team!?) grew in a really neat way. Equipping weapons and armor to robots increased their raw stats. They didn't need to battle to get strong, they just needed to hold your best stuff. And when they equipped weapons, the number of uses remaining got halved (ouch!) but they could recharge at an Inn, just like mutants' abilities. So instead of 50 shots from the basic gun of the game, I got infinite shots, but no more than 25 before needing to recharge. Again, this was a real economizer and made rare one-or-two-in-the-whole-game items stick around much longer.
Monsters grew in an even more interesting way. The monsters you could have on your team were the same as the enemy monsters of the game. Same stats, same abilities, everything. Basically whenever you fought a monster, there was a chance it would leave behind its meat (somehow, even skeletons, ghosts, flowers, and viruses [amongst others] left meat). Eating that meat transformed your monster into a new monster (through a complex table that is unexplained in the game and confused me to no end as a kid). It wasn't foolproof, but generally eating a stronger monster's meat made your monster transform into a better one. Learning certain patterns in this meant you could wind up with a monster on your team several worlds ahead of the ones you were fighting. This kicked an ass or twelve.
Uhhh, is it clear I was really into this game? The story was pretty awesome for a Game Boy game. Basically there was a network of worlds all connected to one larger "Celestial World" by giant pillar-like vines. You'd go from world to world solving crises and looking for shards of a statue of an ancient goddess, trying to track down your lost father. Various non-player characters would join your team temporarily (including that selfsame father!) as the story required. Usually they were awesome help in battles.
Here comes my favorite part about it all. I was a mythology nut as a kid, and I still love those stories. This game weaved several world mythologies into itself. You're not the only one looking for the pieces of the ancient goddess statue. New Gods, seeking to bolster their own growing power are on the hunt as well. I hadn't heard of Ashura before, but Venus? Yeah, I'd heard of her. Odin? Yeah. Apollo? Check. (I guess technically his pre-translation name was Apollyon, the Greek spelling of Abaddon, the demon of christian mythology, but as far as I knew, it was Apollo, Greek/Roman light god). This game required me to KILL GODS. Not just made-up, in-game gods. These were gods I'd heard of. Even the final-stage monsters were gods or epic legendary monsters. And the ones I hadn't heard of, I was so curious about! It gave me tons of leads to learn more about different mythologies.
Good lord did I love this game. At one point I was even working on the novelization of the game. OK, it was fan-fiction, but really, this was pre-internet and I didn't realize this would eventually be commonplace and ridiculed. So yeah, after my initial obsession with it, I'd still go back and replay it every few years. The advent of the internet shed light on all the hidden mechanics of the game for me to go back and retry. ("Ohhh, so this is how to know ahead of time what monster I'll transform to!") I've long lost the cartridge, and even if I hadn't, by now I don't have that old Game Boy, or any player compatible with it. But by George there are emulators now! And I'll be damned if FFLII wasn't one of the first ROMs I downloaded when I learned about emulators (and no, it's not even gray area illegal, since I owned the game legally before downloading. Well, THIS game anyway...).
Now, nostalgia put away, it wasn't a perfect game. There's a lot of game mechanics that really should be better explained in-game, but aren't. Some things are glitchy. I mean, it happens. Such is the nature of older games and their limited programming space. But there are other issues, such as gameplay balancing. There are too many abilities, particularly monster attacks, that are clones of other abilities, just with different names, leading to very little actual meaningful variety between early-game monsters. And a lot of the monsters are just plain useless compared to others. Rotate between the fairy, eye, medusa, ghost, and maybe slime classes and you're all set. It's nice to know how to power through the game, but it lacks variety. Human and mutant stat growth is random and slow. So yeah, flaws.
About a year or two ago, Square-Enix announced a Nintendo DS fully enhanced rebuild of this game. I was PSYCHED. I sifted through the internet for information, images, music from the new release. Seeing my old pixelated monochrome buddies in color and 3D filled me with oddly powerful nostalgia. The Japanese release came and went. Surely they'd announce the US release soon. Surely. ...surely?
... please?
Still no word on if that'll ever happen (I still hope it does). But two very interesting things have happened for me and this game recently. 1) I got an Evo 4G. It runs Android. Android has an app store. The app store has emulators. Miss Susie went to Heaven, the Steamboat went to... um, anyway. After years of having to play this game boy classic chained to a desk (WHAT IS THIS COMUNISTS RUSHIA AM I RITE?), I can take this game handheld, like it was meant to be played. 2) There are a few folks on the internet who apparently loved this game as much as me. Actually more. And they have programming skills. I just downloaded a hacked, patched version of the game that seems to fix most of the flaws, adds variety and difficulty, and even does cosmetic touches like allowing longer names (originally 4 characters max).
I am back on that Christmas morning, with my brand new Game Boy Final Fantasy. The other, blue one. A whole new, harder version of the game I've loved for years awaits me. It is new and old, mingled together. Nostalgia and novelty. ... Why yes, I am 27, chubby, and single, why do you ask?
I know I rambled on this one, guys. To those of you who read this blog for funny stories (80% of my readers, or 1.6 people, if you do the math out), I apologize. Actually, you probably stopped reading several walls of text ago and I can say awful terrible things about you, your mother, and other loved ones. But I wont. To the remaining 0.399 of you who stuck through this, thanks for bearing with me! And to the 0.001 of you who can relate, or maybe even loved this game yourself... let's hang out and be best buds forever.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Formative Years Fiction - The Crazy War
I don't remember what year it was. It was definitely 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. I wish I could recall more clearly the year, but alas, no luck. I also am a little hazy on exactly the nature of the assignment. It may have been to choose a book and write our own version of it, or maybe it had to specifically be a Dr. Seuss book, or maybe it had to specifically be The Butter Battle Book. I'm not sure. All I have record of is the result.
Also, as I've warned in the past, I'm probably going to wind up cursing at some point in here. The disclaimer is getting redundant, but you never know who might be reading.
Unlike the other childhood works I've shared here and will share here in the future, this one was a collaboration. My friend Mike Palazzo and I worked together on this one, and I have to give him half of the credit (blame?) for the story you're about to read. Let me preface, though, by talking a little bit about The Butter Battle Book. This Dr. Seuss classic is a send-up of the Cold War. Two nations, the Yooks and the Zooks, who differ only in their preference of which side to butter their bread on, are locked in perpetual conflict. They have an arms race of wacky Dr. Seuss weaponry that culminates in the simultaneous development of two tiny, horrifically destructive red bombs. The book ends on a cliffhanger, with both sides ready to detonate their bombs, waiting to see what the other will do. Mutually assured destruction.
Mike and I, well, didn't quite get the allusion. This is not Dr. Seuss's fault, he basically beat us over the head with the message with the subtlety of a sledgehammer (but the charm and style of a renowned children's author). No, this was just a case of the minds of children caring more about what would be AWESOME than what makes for a poignant story with a moral. Without further ado, let's take a look at The Crazy War. As always, click the pictures to see them embiggened, much like a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
I guess we actually did use some symbolism, although unintentionally. I'm pretty sure the grandson is representative of our non-existent attention spans. You'll see. Also, FYI? We never once see another member of this "army" besides a guy in a window and a dog. Read on if you don't believe me.
The grandson is just as bored with exposition as Mike and I are. Poor Gen. Grandpa. He looks spry for a grandparent though, doesn't he?
"What should we draw?" "What does this page say?" "Well, it says something about eating toast with the butter-side up." "OK, draw that. Draw him eating toast."
Man, that wall does not look good. Also, the general grew a beard for this page. Also, the text on this page is really as close as we're going to get to the actual message of the original Butter Battle Book. The general would prefer not to fight, because the war is silly. So he claims.
OK, so last page, the general didn't want to fight a silly war. Now as soon as he sees Van Itch in the distance, it's switchin' time. Whatever that means. WAY TO STICK TO YOUR PRINCIPLES, ASSHAT!
How convenient, the wall collapsed. Also, poor grandkid, he is totally the punching bag of the story. Have fun in a pile of rocks, junior. How did they ALL fall on him, no matter how far along the wall they were?
"What about this page, what should I draw here?" "Again, what does the page say?" "Umm, we put in some stupid rhyme about singing a terrible song to make the rhyme we needed." "Draw it." At least it's accurate, that song sounds terrible even on paper.
Child humor logic precept #28: Things that are oversized are funnier. Check the enormous slingshot rock (the laws of physics would prevent it from even firing!) and the enormous lump on the kid's head. Also, nice reaction time, shorty. You started getting conked on the dome-piece like three pages ago and you just say "OUCH!" now?
Ah, inside the military base. With bizarrely close doors, weird stairs, a table and... wait. What the? On the table, all the way to the right, the purple thing. Is that... what the fuck is a bong doing in this story? Seriously, I'm pretty sure neither Mike nor I knew what a bong was at that age. Oh purple mystery bong, you are a metaphor for this entire ridiculous story.
FUCK YEAH!
Well doesn't that figure. Why the general decided to bring the dog along for a ride in the Bomberoo is beyond me. Except maybe Child Humor Logic Precept #8 got invoked: Misfortune is funnier if animals are responsible.
Wait, what's that? Is that any point whatsoever this story might have had exploding in your face? We really went the opposite direction from Dr. Seuss's intentional non-ending here, instead opting for absolute sudden closure. Yooks win, because they had a bomb. Kids are fascists. Also, don't go hating on the erroneous spelling of Alpha Centauri. And yes, it's a star, not a planet. Whatever, asshole, it's not like we had Wikipedia in 1993.
Now, something this book was lacking was a cover. I mean, it had a cover in that our teacher had us bind our books in like, oak tag and wallpaper or something, but it didn't have cover art. So, here for your viewing pleasure is a present-day mock-up of a cover for the epic team-up of Remus Thirty and Mike Palazzo. That was a lot of hyphens in that last sentence.
That's all folks! See ya next time!
Also, as I've warned in the past, I'm probably going to wind up cursing at some point in here. The disclaimer is getting redundant, but you never know who might be reading.
Unlike the other childhood works I've shared here and will share here in the future, this one was a collaboration. My friend Mike Palazzo and I worked together on this one, and I have to give him half of the credit (blame?) for the story you're about to read. Let me preface, though, by talking a little bit about The Butter Battle Book. This Dr. Seuss classic is a send-up of the Cold War. Two nations, the Yooks and the Zooks, who differ only in their preference of which side to butter their bread on, are locked in perpetual conflict. They have an arms race of wacky Dr. Seuss weaponry that culminates in the simultaneous development of two tiny, horrifically destructive red bombs. The book ends on a cliffhanger, with both sides ready to detonate their bombs, waiting to see what the other will do. Mutually assured destruction.
Mike and I, well, didn't quite get the allusion. This is not Dr. Seuss's fault, he basically beat us over the head with the message with the subtlety of a sledgehammer (but the charm and style of a renowned children's author). No, this was just a case of the minds of children caring more about what would be AWESOME than what makes for a poignant story with a moral. Without further ado, let's take a look at The Crazy War. As always, click the pictures to see them embiggened, much like a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
I guess we actually did use some symbolism, although unintentionally. I'm pretty sure the grandson is representative of our non-existent attention spans. You'll see. Also, FYI? We never once see another member of this "army" besides a guy in a window and a dog. Read on if you don't believe me.
The grandson is just as bored with exposition as Mike and I are. Poor Gen. Grandpa. He looks spry for a grandparent though, doesn't he?
"What should we draw?" "What does this page say?" "Well, it says something about eating toast with the butter-side up." "OK, draw that. Draw him eating toast."
Man, that wall does not look good. Also, the general grew a beard for this page. Also, the text on this page is really as close as we're going to get to the actual message of the original Butter Battle Book. The general would prefer not to fight, because the war is silly. So he claims.
OK, so last page, the general didn't want to fight a silly war. Now as soon as he sees Van Itch in the distance, it's switchin' time. Whatever that means. WAY TO STICK TO YOUR PRINCIPLES, ASSHAT!
How convenient, the wall collapsed. Also, poor grandkid, he is totally the punching bag of the story. Have fun in a pile of rocks, junior. How did they ALL fall on him, no matter how far along the wall they were?
"What about this page, what should I draw here?" "Again, what does the page say?" "Umm, we put in some stupid rhyme about singing a terrible song to make the rhyme we needed." "Draw it." At least it's accurate, that song sounds terrible even on paper.
Child humor logic precept #28: Things that are oversized are funnier. Check the enormous slingshot rock (the laws of physics would prevent it from even firing!) and the enormous lump on the kid's head. Also, nice reaction time, shorty. You started getting conked on the dome-piece like three pages ago and you just say "OUCH!" now?
Ah, inside the military base. With bizarrely close doors, weird stairs, a table and... wait. What the? On the table, all the way to the right, the purple thing. Is that... what the fuck is a bong doing in this story? Seriously, I'm pretty sure neither Mike nor I knew what a bong was at that age. Oh purple mystery bong, you are a metaphor for this entire ridiculous story.
FUCK YEAH!
Well doesn't that figure. Why the general decided to bring the dog along for a ride in the Bomberoo is beyond me. Except maybe Child Humor Logic Precept #8 got invoked: Misfortune is funnier if animals are responsible.
Wait, what's that? Is that any point whatsoever this story might have had exploding in your face? We really went the opposite direction from Dr. Seuss's intentional non-ending here, instead opting for absolute sudden closure. Yooks win, because they had a bomb. Kids are fascists. Also, don't go hating on the erroneous spelling of Alpha Centauri. And yes, it's a star, not a planet. Whatever, asshole, it's not like we had Wikipedia in 1993.
Now, something this book was lacking was a cover. I mean, it had a cover in that our teacher had us bind our books in like, oak tag and wallpaper or something, but it didn't have cover art. So, here for your viewing pleasure is a present-day mock-up of a cover for the epic team-up of Remus Thirty and Mike Palazzo. That was a lot of hyphens in that last sentence.
That's all folks! See ya next time!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tales From The Lebowskis - Hulka, Prince of Lies
A lot of the Lebowski family tales are brief moments, that don't really translate well to a single, dramatic narrative. This is because these stories are real life events, and real life doesn't always follow the traditional "rising action-climax-falling action" pattern of stories. For this entry in the Tales From The Lebowskis feature, I'm going to share with you a number of brief, unrelated episodes on a common theme. Stephen "Hulka" Lebowski is my uncle and is quite a character, as you may recall. He is also an accomplished artist of the English language, and can use his linguistic prowess for both truth and lies.
Over the course of my life, I have borne witness to many of Hulka's finest lies, so I would like to relate a few of my favorite untruths from Uncle Hulka. Before I do, let me say that Hulka's lies to me were often spun with the intention of entertaining me, filling my head with images of a fantastical world where anything is possible. It made my childhood that much more fun, and I wouldn't trade those wonderful lies for anything. Here now are a few chosen lies that I've enjoyed from Hulka over the years.
Over the course of my life, I have borne witness to many of Hulka's finest lies, so I would like to relate a few of my favorite untruths from Uncle Hulka. Before I do, let me say that Hulka's lies to me were often spun with the intention of entertaining me, filling my head with images of a fantastical world where anything is possible. It made my childhood that much more fun, and I wouldn't trade those wonderful lies for anything. Here now are a few chosen lies that I've enjoyed from Hulka over the years.
- Hulka supposedly had two alternate dog-like personalities that would come out from time to time complete with gruff voices. They were Lockjaw (the nice dog person) and Dogjaw (the mean one). When I was being a little shit, Hulka would warn me that Dogjaw was taking over, usually scaring me into behaving and pleading with Dogjaw to let Lockjaw take over instead.
- Dogjaw was not enough of a deterrent for bad behavior I guess, because Hulka also warned me of The No-Fun House. The No-Fun House was the worst place in the world. Anything bad I could think of to ask if it was there, Hulka told me was there. Any redeeming qualities I could think of to ask if they belonged to the No-Fun House, Hulka denied. I was terrified of being sent to the No-Fun House. The No-Fun House was located in Moosup, CT, where they have nothing but wheat. When I was told this, I cried. Once I was being particularly spazzy in the car and Hulka pulled his car up in front of an abandoned house and told me this was the fabled No-Fun House, and to get out. I was scared shitless and immediately behaved like a model child, at least until we were far enough away.
- Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy apparently used to live in the house next door to the one Hulka lived in at the time (his parents, Mary "Nonnie" Lebowski and David "Jaja" Lebowski's house). They were not the best neighbors for Hulka because they used to wake him up very early by coming over and jumping on his bed, instructing him to Mousercise with them. They had moved away to Florida before I was born, because their new home, Walt Disney World, had been completed.
- Hulka, while driving one day, spotted a car being driven by a cat, with another cat riding in the back. The car pulled up next to him at a red light and he recognized the cats as my cats, Jammers (driving) and Jiggs (passenger). The car was my mother's brand new Subaru station wagon. Jammers tried to convince Hulka to drag race against her by revving the engine, but Hulka did not. Jammers peeled out when the light changed and zoomed away, as Jiggs waved out the rear windshield. I was dubious of this, but Hulka convinced me by correctly identifying the make, model, and color of my mother's car.
- Hulka was part of a conspiracy of adults who successfully had me believe that our elderly family friend, Katherine Kookaburra was trapped in a number of dryers in a variety of family members' homes. Katherine had a distinct and easily imitable voice. Did you know that if somebody stands at the dryer vent outside a house and speaks into it, it sounds like the voice is coming from inside the dryer? Hulka, his siblings, and at least a few of their spouses knew this. Obviously upon opening the dryer, I could see she was not inside, but I believed she had somehow gotten herself trapped behind the tumbler (so many times! Katherine, stay away from dryers for Christ's sake!) and if the adults would just cooperate with me, we could get the tumbler out and save her. But no, not only did they let me futilely try to figure out how to get behind the tumbler, they also would inform me, after a minute or two had passed, that we couldn't wait any longer to run the dryer. "But there's no clothes to dry! Katherine's in there!" "I know, but it's time to run the dryer now. Let's hope Katherine can handle it."
- Hulka and his sister Patty "Pappy" Rudedawg nee Lebowski (the one who accompanied Great Jaja on his trip to the Springfield Bus Station) collaborated on the wonderful idea that the live lobster they were going to cook for their father as a Father's Day feast was in fact the new pet lobster, Leo (named after Leo Bootywitz? Maybe.) Leo enjoyed crawling around, and even visited me while I was in the pool, although he wouldn't actually get in. He had rubber bands on his claws so he wouldn't hurt his new family. They did not think this lie through, because eventually they had to murder Leo and let my grandfather feast on the corpse of our new pet. When I tearfully pleaded for him to stop, that Leo was a pet, I was told by my loving grandfather, Jaja, "Oh, horseshit! *crunch*"
- Hulka's lies were not always to me. On one memorable occasion, he lied for my benefit. Hulka and my father, Steve Thirty, had just taken me to Wal-Mart so I could buy the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (packaged with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past!) that I had saved up a $2 per week allowance for for over a year. We got back to Hulka's to drop him off before going home. While at Hulka's, Hulka wanted to loan me a few more SNES games for my new system. My father did not want to wait, and told me to go get in the car. Hulka, from the bedroom where he kept his old SNES games, told me to come and take them from him. I was trapped between contradicting orders from two adults I loved and respected. "Remus, come here!" "Remus, go to the car." "Remus, come here!" "No, you go to the car." Then the stalemate was broken by Hulka: "Remus! I'm on fire!" Now, I didn't believe him. Nor did my father. But I looked up at my father, shrugged, and ran to get my games. Upon returning to the living room, I said to my father, "I'm probably in trouble, huh?" "Yeah." But Hulka came to my defense! "No, Steve," he said, "Remus saved my life. A comet crashed into me and set me on fire. It flew all the way from Uranus! It hit me in My-anus!" A good laugh was had by all, and I did not get in trouble.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Tales From The Lebowskis - Bad Influences
Up to this point, I've left myself out of the Lebowski stories that have appeared on this blog. Today, that changes. Today, I would like to share with you a story from my early childhood, a story that my father Steven Thirty wishes would just vanish from history. This story was actually kept from me until I was about 20 years old, despite the fact that I was a key player. I had no memory of it, because I was about 1 or 2 years old at the time. I had just entered that lovely phase of childhood during which a young child, his or her brain seeking to learn as much language as possible, will repeat anything you say to him or her. In this case, him. Duh.
Also, I should warn you that this Lebowski tale contains language that some may consider shocking or offensive. If you are easily offended, I recommend you read a different blog, or better yet, leave the internet and never come back, because the internet is not a safe place for the gentle-minded.
Stephen "Hulka" Lebowski has been a wonderful uncle since day one. He was always looking out for me, making sure I knew about cool things like his muscle cars or The Doors. Seriously, after the usual childhood basic words (mama, dada, kitty, doggie, etc.) Hulka made it a point to teach me that he drove a "Fouh-Fouh-Two!" and the lead singer of The Doors was "Jim Moh-son!" Mixed in with these important facts were also an astonishing number of harmless-ish, entertaining lies but those will be saved for another time. Because between the truths and the lies, there rests forbidden knowledge.
One day, Hulka, who at this point was still living with his parents, Mary and David Lebowski (Nonnie and Jaja), had a couple of friends over. Notable amongst these young men was John Tygers, one of Hulka's best friends. Eric Zealand may or may not have been present for this. Anyway, Hulka and his buddies were watching a movie together in Hulka's room. Not just any movie, an adult movie. The film was one of the movies from the adult film series The Devil in Miss Jones. I think it MAY have been the 4th installment, The Final Outrage, but I am not certain. I sadly have not seen these films, and so cannot tell you.
There was a line in this film that Hulka, John, and company found absolutely uproarious. At some point an African-American character with a gravelly voice describes to the titular Miss Jones, possibly whilst in Hell, that "... you got a jizz-a-mighty dick, HANGIN' out yo' butt!" What this line actually physically describes is difficult to determine. What makes a dick jizz-a-mighty? Why would it just be hanging out of Miss Jones' butt and not doing something? These are questions I do not know the answer to, and certainly did not know the answers to at age 1 or 2.
This did not stop Hulka and John from continuing my education though. Because when his beloved nephew wandered down the hall from the living room to see Uncle Hulka, Hulka and John saw opportunity. An opportunity to take what was already a hilarious porno line and make it even funnier. By getting the 2-year-old to repeat it. And so, Hulka and John Tygers started teaching me the line. "Remus, say: you got a jizz-a-mighty dick, HANGIN' out yo' butt!" And what else could I do? These was my beloved uncle and his good friend. They usually steered me right. And I had no clue what the words meant anyway.
"You ga jiiiiiiimadig, HAAAAAAAn oucha bud!"
The laughter was immense. This was comedic gold. "You ga jiiiiiiiiimadig, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAn oucha bud!!" Even more laughter. This line was a keeper. I was going to use this all the time to make the grown-ups laugh. And use it I did. But nobody else got it. Nobody else even understood what I was saying. It was the idle talk of a toddler. And so parents, grandparents, strangers, all were treated to the best of The Devil in Miss Jones without knowing it. For several weeks. But then something happened.
My family was visiting at Nonnie and Jaja's, as was a frequent occurence. John Tygers was also there at the same time, visiting Hulka. And we were all in the living room. And upon seeing my uncle and John together, I did what I would naturally do: use their favorite line to get a reaction. "You ga jiiiiiiiiiiimadig, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAn oucha bud!" And they laughed. And John repeated it back to me: "You got a jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizz-a-mighty dick, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAngin' out yo' butt!" And it was grand fun. Except this time, my father was there.
His gaze turned to something between ice and stone. "What did you just say?"
"Uhhh, Steve, I uhh..."
"What did you just say, John?"
"Steve, it's just, it's just a line from a movie, it's not a big deal."
"You taught my son, my 2-year-old son, a line from a porno?"
Needless to say, I wasn't really allowed to hang out with Uncle Hulka and John alone much after that point, at least not until I was a little older.
Now, I would like to end with a request/challenge. As established earlier, I have never actually seen the film the line is from. I don't feel like watching a seven-film series just to find the line. If any of you readers can find me either a copy of the film (the correct film, not just any film in the series) or even better, the clip in question, I will come up with a good prize for you. This prize will include a special write-up on the blog, and probably something else good too (what it will be depends on who wins). So start searching, my beloved perverts! Find me this porn!
Also, I should warn you that this Lebowski tale contains language that some may consider shocking or offensive. If you are easily offended, I recommend you read a different blog, or better yet, leave the internet and never come back, because the internet is not a safe place for the gentle-minded.
Stephen "Hulka" Lebowski has been a wonderful uncle since day one. He was always looking out for me, making sure I knew about cool things like his muscle cars or The Doors. Seriously, after the usual childhood basic words (mama, dada, kitty, doggie, etc.) Hulka made it a point to teach me that he drove a "Fouh-Fouh-Two!" and the lead singer of The Doors was "Jim Moh-son!" Mixed in with these important facts were also an astonishing number of harmless-ish, entertaining lies but those will be saved for another time. Because between the truths and the lies, there rests forbidden knowledge.
One day, Hulka, who at this point was still living with his parents, Mary and David Lebowski (Nonnie and Jaja), had a couple of friends over. Notable amongst these young men was John Tygers, one of Hulka's best friends. Eric Zealand may or may not have been present for this. Anyway, Hulka and his buddies were watching a movie together in Hulka's room. Not just any movie, an adult movie. The film was one of the movies from the adult film series The Devil in Miss Jones. I think it MAY have been the 4th installment, The Final Outrage, but I am not certain. I sadly have not seen these films, and so cannot tell you.
There was a line in this film that Hulka, John, and company found absolutely uproarious. At some point an African-American character with a gravelly voice describes to the titular Miss Jones, possibly whilst in Hell, that "... you got a jizz-a-mighty dick, HANGIN' out yo' butt!" What this line actually physically describes is difficult to determine. What makes a dick jizz-a-mighty? Why would it just be hanging out of Miss Jones' butt and not doing something? These are questions I do not know the answer to, and certainly did not know the answers to at age 1 or 2.
This did not stop Hulka and John from continuing my education though. Because when his beloved nephew wandered down the hall from the living room to see Uncle Hulka, Hulka and John saw opportunity. An opportunity to take what was already a hilarious porno line and make it even funnier. By getting the 2-year-old to repeat it. And so, Hulka and John Tygers started teaching me the line. "Remus, say: you got a jizz-a-mighty dick, HANGIN' out yo' butt!" And what else could I do? These was my beloved uncle and his good friend. They usually steered me right. And I had no clue what the words meant anyway.
"You ga jiiiiiiimadig, HAAAAAAAn oucha bud!"
The laughter was immense. This was comedic gold. "You ga jiiiiiiiiimadig, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAn oucha bud!!" Even more laughter. This line was a keeper. I was going to use this all the time to make the grown-ups laugh. And use it I did. But nobody else got it. Nobody else even understood what I was saying. It was the idle talk of a toddler. And so parents, grandparents, strangers, all were treated to the best of The Devil in Miss Jones without knowing it. For several weeks. But then something happened.
My family was visiting at Nonnie and Jaja's, as was a frequent occurence. John Tygers was also there at the same time, visiting Hulka. And we were all in the living room. And upon seeing my uncle and John together, I did what I would naturally do: use their favorite line to get a reaction. "You ga jiiiiiiiiiiimadig, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAn oucha bud!" And they laughed. And John repeated it back to me: "You got a jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizz-a-mighty dick, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAngin' out yo' butt!" And it was grand fun. Except this time, my father was there.
His gaze turned to something between ice and stone. "What did you just say?"
"Uhhh, Steve, I uhh..."
"What did you just say, John?"
"Steve, it's just, it's just a line from a movie, it's not a big deal."
"You taught my son, my 2-year-old son, a line from a porno?"
Needless to say, I wasn't really allowed to hang out with Uncle Hulka and John alone much after that point, at least not until I was a little older.
Now, I would like to end with a request/challenge. As established earlier, I have never actually seen the film the line is from. I don't feel like watching a seven-film series just to find the line. If any of you readers can find me either a copy of the film (the correct film, not just any film in the series) or even better, the clip in question, I will come up with a good prize for you. This prize will include a special write-up on the blog, and probably something else good too (what it will be depends on who wins). So start searching, my beloved perverts! Find me this porn!
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