#Pokemon20
HEY, WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THE ORIGINAL POKEMON THEME SONG? cuz fuck you that's why.
Jigglypuff was my favorite recurring Pokemon in the show. Looking back, my favorite episodes of the original Polemon anime weren't moments from the game, it was all the little inbetween episodes that fleshed out the world a little bit. Like the episode Jigglypuff first appeared in, and it featured a city that wasn't in the games, or the one where they visited that doctor who taught them about Pokemon evolution, where Slowpoke evolves into Slowbro. Or that episode where Bulbasaur was called to his Saurpeople and wanted to evolve but he didn't want to change his personality, or the one where Ash wanted Pikachu to evolve to beat Lt. Surge's Raichu but Pikachu was like "NO! I WANT TO DO IT FOR ALL THE PIKACHUS OUT THERE!" and then there's the one where-
ANYTHING ELSE? I've got Omni Expo this weekend, so to celebrate, here's another recap video from Holiday Matsuri!
Nothing new for a little bit, mostly this week is going to be practice for OMNI Expo, I'm going to be streaming practice sometime this week.
Other than that, this weekend was pretty good, I found a copy of Buck Bumble in the wild, and managed to find this little guy:
There are a couple things in the future that might be worth talking about, but I'm waiting to hear more about it.
Now I've got two weeks to catch up on, thankfully not a lot of ground to retread:
GODS AND MONSTERS: SLAYERS OF DECADENCE EPISODE 9
Another episode where we're out of our comfort zones with Ray playing a aggro goat demigod Landris to his trickster water god Zun Quib Slay, and me playing Explorer for the Future Fillion to my smashy-smashy War God Kindunos.
While it's not quite the finale, we did set up a REALLY good final chapter, and some groundwork is laid for Fillion to a perfectly politicking asshole.
-"I Should Have Killed You When I Had The Chance" Supercut
-"You Just Don't Get It Do You?" Supercut
-OK GO "Upside Down Inside Out
I'm fucking glad OK Go is doing these music videos. Back in the early
days of MTV, the first people to make videos were art students and
people who wanted to make weird shit, and they were the one of the first
ones on YouTube to go "FUCK YEAH! EAT OUR CONCEPTS, NEEERRRRRRDS!"
-Rock Band 2 Update brought us A LOT of good music, like "Ace Of
Spades" (the '08 rerecord where he says "But no one wants to live for
ever/but apparently I am), "Alex Chilton", "Alive", "Bad Reputation",
"Chop Suey", "Come Out And Play", "Down With The Sickness",
"Everlong"... that's only up to E. Rock Band 2's soundtrack was probably
my favorite out of the lot.
It was right at that confluence of "We haven't completely mined
everything yet" and "We have a shitton of money and promotion behind
us".
However, I think it's the soundtrack I got sick of the soonest. Like
GH3, it was the peak of it's popularity, the setlist was the most played
and there were setups EVERYWHERE. Especially "Livin' on a Prayer" and
"Anyway You Want It", two of the biggest singalong songs ever. I think
the only thing RB4 is missing now is Lego Rock Band and AC/DC, the
former I regret getting on.
-Mystakin Of The Axe v. 3 with the CORRECT flavor text
-The notion of a "Console Wars" I believe has subsided in the past
few years, primarily because everything has gotten so expensive, all the
games come out for pretty much everything. In response to that, the PC
Master Race comes out of the ashes, and the focus shifts between not who
has the better platform, but who plays their games in the best way.
The term comes from an old Zero Punctuation Review of The Witcher
(the first one), where Yahtzee states that the nature of the game's
PC-Only Nature meant it had to be very difficult and complicated.
What started as an ironic joke turned into a symbol of pride. "Look
at these snobbish assholes" became "LOOK, WE'RE SNOBBISH ASSHOLES!".
It's like if rich people introduced themselves with "As A Fat Cat
1%er..."
Also PCs are more expensive than consoles. Whereas the CONSOLE WAR
mentality was usually because you could only buy the one, PC mentality
is like "I spent more on this, why isn't this the best? I need 60 FPS!"
-Pokemon's Super Bowl Commercial
I was in the right age to get absolutely overwhelmed by the Pokemon
Machine as a kid, and this ad is peak "Sure, whatever kid, had a big ol'
adventure for yourself!" and presents a world where people can have
Pikachus for pets.
Now I want The Miz to play Giovanni in a live action Pokemon thing.
-The name of Demetri Martin's show was "Important Things With Demetri Martin". It
was all right, considering how often Comedy Central gives standup comics
a sketch show for a couple years then cancels it.
-Mystakin is one of the Authors under the Rhythm Authors banner, who Harmonix has been outsourcing some authoring work to.
Not necessarily a surprise, since Harmonix is independent studio and
has a fraction of the manpower they used to have, so reaching out to
experienced Rock Band Authors is a completely acceptable course of
action.
Rhythm Authors did a lot of songs for the Rock Band Network for some
very popular metal bands, such as A Day To Remember, Between The Buried
and Me and Five Finger Death Punch.
-Mystakin covers Single White Infidel:
-Mystakin covers Rhythm Bastard:
-Mystakin covers Arcanon:
4chan would paradoxically be NICER than most other places? Like,
they'd probably call us "gay faggots with shitty butt music" and it
feels so generic that I couldn't be offended. It's still offensive, but
it loops back around to being inoffensive since that's what they say to
everybody.
-Christian McBride: Cherokee, because I have to feature the improvised jazz solo at least once:
I find this odd, since technically this album came out in 2013... DUN DUN OPEN NOTES
The
hard separation between fast and slow is jarring, but I take it this
won the Grammy because the Pianist, Christian Sands is able to keep up
regardless. Like, the rest of the band is like "Hey, let's see if we can
fuck him up" and Christian Sands is like "Ha ha you wish motherfucker."
Or
possibly because the way Christian McBride plays bass is like a normal
guitarist busting out a solo. If this were an octave higher it would fit
right into a metal song. That guy's fingers must be swole as fuck.
What I'm saying is that it's a good song. Not one I'd have on my MP3
while I'm pumping iron in the gym, but one I enjoyed listening to
writing this recap.
-Nuclear Throne is the best class of
roguelike, because the "run" is as simple as pulling the lever on a slot
machine. Same with FTL, where a run doesn't require a major time
commitment, and if you lose, you're only out an hour at most.
-"Tacos are a renewable experience"- Rhythm Bastard
-Pro level strats with Jeff Gertsmann
-Mega64's Deadpool Movie Sketch
-So, in Magic the Gathering, there are 5 colors, each with it's own
strengths and weaknesses. I'll summarize as quickly as possible: WHITE- Usually white spells are about keeping you and your creatures alive for as long as possible. BLUE-
Usually blue spells are about playing the game on your own terms, doing
things such as making creatures weaker, or countering your opponent's
spells. BLACK- Black spells involve death of some sort, usually
either killing creatures, or interacting with your discard pile (aka
"Graveyard") RED- Red spells are about speed and direct damage, like
"Deal X damage to target creature or player" and creatures that can
attack very early on in the game. GREEN- Green spells are about big
creatures and lands, so you can make lands big creatures or get more
lands to get to your big creatures sooner.
Around the mid-2000s, Magic made characters called "Planeswalkers" that act as an embodiment of each color.
Jace,
who Jeff talked about is the blue mage, and he's the most popular
probably because A. He looks the most like what we think of a "Wizard"
and B. He's moody and brooding and all the anti-hero types in what is
basically a scrawny scene kid: Every bit of lore he's involved in goes as such: Someone tricks him, then he gets tortured, then he Protagonists his way to victory.
Garruk was the Green Planeswalker for a while, until the Innstrad block when he'd been cursed with a magic artifact. Origianlly he was going to use his magic to be a farmer, then local army wanted him, but him and his Dad were all like, "Nah, fuck that noise" and the Army killed his Dad. He then spent the next 10 years suplexing progressively larger beasts, then eating them.
Chandra is the Red Planeswalker. Guess what her magic preference is?
I agree with Jeff that her "Origin Story" is the best. She was raised on Steampunk India (Kaladesh) where her parents were Engineers but she was like "I'm gonna be King Of The Outlaws!" which is a coincidence because her parents were also working for a rebel alliance because the government was basically Reaganomics and was like "THE AETHER WILL TRICKLE DOWN!".
So when she was delivering some Aether the royal guard caught her, but she fought them off with her newly discovered fire magic. Her parents were like "That was cool and all, and we love you baby, but we need to GTFO".
They fled to a village, then the Royal Guard caught up with them and was like "Gorbachev, burn down this village. Chandra was to be excecuted in an arena, where at the last second she planeswalked away.
-Some highlights from the Sonic The Hedgehog Twitter:
Everything's beem thrown off this week because my Dad was hit by a car a couple weeks ago and I've been running around taking him to doctor's offices and he just went into surgery today. Everything's fine, he made it out OK! They're keeping him overnight for observation and to have him rest.
Best of luck to her, I'll talk more extensively about this outside the Status Quo Sunday.
MUSIC NEWS!
About time asshat...
WHAT?
Nothing...
ALL RIGHT THEN.
"TAKE THE OATH" IS NOW OUT ON SOUNDCLOUD AND YOUTUBE!
I have a new song out, called "Take The Oath" inspired by the Oath of the Gatewatch set for Magic The Gathering.
This was a difficult, but also very rewarding song to work on. It's definitely one I had the longest streak of writer's block for, since everything was so pressured to have it out "on time" I just had trouble wrapping my head around it.
I like having the blocks work out to be these miniature concept albums where the Khans block went fast-slow-fast and was about loving dragons, this was about being a group of dorks who fight against Cthulu. At the very least it takes away some of the thematic guesswork out and I have somewhat of an idea where my next steps are going to be.
The next block is Shadows Over Innistrad which takes place in a realm inspired by gothic horror, so either alt-metal or Tom Waits style habberdashery. NEW DEAL ON BANDCAMP!
Giving away MtG Cards with every tangible order. I have a shitton of some left over promos, and a bunch of commons and uncommons I cracked open from Oath of the Gatewatch. I'm not promising anything spectacular, but some of you out there who are curious about this game I talk about pretty much every week, or you don't keep up with the game regularly, it's a neat little bonus.
CON NEWS! Omni Expo is still happening! I haven't been promoting it, because I'm too busy finishing up the song, but I'll get to practicing this week!
I do not have any concert set up, but I will have a table at Out Con. It was very reasonable, profits go to a good cause, it's only one day. My music is awesome, so I think I can manage. Even better if I have a concert!
This week's jam is in no way influenced by the passing of very regressive Supreme Court Justice Scalia:
Instead it was influenced by two things: The first one, and most prevalent to someone who would be visiting the website of someone who bills himself as a Nerdcore Punk: DEADPOOL! While it has been 7 years since Origins and as long since I've been reading up on DP and wanting this movie. I even read the leaked script from 2010.
However, both me as a person and Deadpool's portrayal in pop culture have changed significantly those past 7 years. I've seen a shitton of cosplayers at cons, his being wedged into every intersection of things that are "nerdy" and "funny" with memes of him everywhere, and the idiotic videogame, at some point along the line, I was like "OK, this is too stupid for me". The ad campaign leading up to the movie didn't help either, and at certain point I was dreading the movie. Basically, I was going in expecting this:
The Ugly: Deadpool's face. Kudos to the makeup artists and the effects people for really going hardcore on some of the body horror stuff.
The Bad: The villain was really lackluster. Like, he could have just worn a white
morphsuit that just said "BAD GUY" on it and the effect would be the
same. It's also not as weird as I was hoping for. It's failry standard plot for an action movie, just with everything shifted around a little.
Also, remember two paragraphs ago when I said I read the leaked script? Yeah, it spoiled some of the bigger jokes for me.
The Good: Despite all of that, Ryan Reynolds's delivery sold me on everything. It was a superhero movie with small stakes made interesting, a romantic subplot where the couple got to know each other over a year,
Also there was a lot of shit in that script that thankfully got cut out. Spoiler: Running joke where Amy Winehouse almost dies.
ANYTHING ELSE? The big news this week was that I was interviewed for FandomMania's Geek Music podcast. Seriously, look how fucking rogueish I look in that picture.
THE MAGIC THING. Oh yeah! I went 2-1 at Game Day. and got a crapton of spare promos they had. Abzan did fairly well, my only loss was against a Black/Red Dragons deck. On top of that, there's a special offer when-
NO, DIPSHIT. THE SONG, WHERE'S THE SONG?!?!? Coming this Wednesday. I have everything written, and it's mixed, but there's some cuts I wanted to make, I want to get little production sounds decent, and make sure everything rolls along.
As my 700th post on this blog, I would like to say a big and hearty "THANK YOU!" to everyone who's been with me so far. Since this blog began in 2008, I've released two albums, lived in a different state, graduate college, played a shitton of conventions and made some new friends along the way.
What better way to celebrate this than a podcast I was interviewed for?
This was fun! It really helped that me and Chad both loved the hell out of MtG and Fallout. Keep in mind this was recorded late in December, so this was back when only 75% of the population saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
-Now, normally this is where I'd put my card, but Jeff beat me to a
card based off me. AND I'M ME! Here's the two for comparison: JEFF'S VERSION
MY VERSION:
Eh, formatting!
My rare spell:
I didn't want to lean too hard into the FIGHTBROS thing, so I just made a card in green's wheelhouse.
And to complete the cycle, our brave leader:
And his rare spell:
And, here's a tribute to Paolo's Shoutout, AKA Guardians of Meletis:
-Rock Band 4 new songs: They released 90% of the bands they announced THE FIRST WEEK
Lots of good tracks here. If the Mad Catz news spells out bad news for Rock Band, they certainly are going out on a high note.
-ALRIGHTALRIGHTALRIGHTALRIGHTALRIGHT
FUN FACT: This wasn't released online because it was part of an
episode of their Musical Episode from Version 3, "Mega64!". That episode
also featured their PaRappa skit, and their Elite Beat Agents skit,
some of their best work.
-"Overkill" from Scrubs, because the acoustic version is so great:
-I can listen to me and Jeff say "CHICKEN FRIED" in our fake-AVGN voices for hours and hours.
-Also Audioslave's "Killing In The Name" feat. Bill Cosby
-Real names I made up for this podcast: Steve Programmerson Rick Janitorson Robert Vaperson Jerimah Smokesworth
-Nothing
against hoverboards/vaping, but that kind of stuff is very prominent in
brogrammer culture, which, like Hipsters and Emos, is one of the much
maligned subcultures that, five years down the line stopped getting
hate. Like, who gets upset at music/kids being emo? Instead we punish
people for having feelings by calling them an SJW. Hipsters? Pssh...
They invested their trust funds and are now doing stuff that older white
people do, like gentrification, only this time, they do it on purpose.
Brogrammers will be broke in 5 years, or like their hipster bretheren, will reinvest and start doing Evil White Person Shit.
-YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS comes from the Doom Comic:
It's OK that he talks like a dumbass, that's the bezerker drug talking.
-Now would be a good time to plug my friend DJ Roborob's remix of Mirror's Edge's "Still Alive'
Never has music and 80's style fitness become so engrossing since Eric Prydz's "Call On Me"
Wait, what was I talking about again?
Oh yeah, sexy ass YouTube videos. Like for example, the Battle For Zendikar song I FINALLY put up on Youtube!
Just in time for the Top 8 in the Oath of the Gatewatch Pro Tour to be all Eldrazi decks!
Basically, this is a cop out, since I don't have a song ready for you all YET. I am working on that, a Deadpool song, and a mini session that I'm developing and will have for you all next Sunday should I have nothing ready.
I'm on thin ice at work and everyone's sanity back here is razor thin, so it's been touch and go.
WELL, I'LL GUESS I'LL FUCK OFF THEN-
NOPE!
You know how during my Echo Chamber Recaps I've been making up Magic: The Gathering Card for th crew? Well, Jeff made one for me!
My plan was to be a mono-Green creature, with fighting, but eh.
Also, Jeff hade another one for me:
-As far as Silly RPG Names go, my personal Top 3 are as follows:
In third, Mystakin's constant Butt Names.
In second, the voice of Professor Oak calling his own grandson Dicks:
And an first, WHEN YOU SO KAWAII THE PLANET DIES
-The section where Jeff talks about Punch Club I have under a sub-heard in my notes called "FUCKING BUBBLES" after the Nostalgia Critic gag.
However, I feel like the "Bubbles" thing in these types of games is simply the result of the "Best Thing" being the standard.
Here's some bullshit I came up with. Not Grade-A Star Fox/G-Diffuser Bullshit. But close:
1. Designers need a visual way to show that progress is happening. An object heading toward a meter is a good way to show that things are proceeding upward, while not relying on the player squinting at a progress bar. In the case of Game Dev Tycoon, these bubbles tick up a counter. In Punch Club, they go toward your fighters attributes, showing A. That stat is increasing, B. The activity increase that stat and C. How long that activity will remain effective in increasing that stat.
2. Bubbles are "friendly". Round shapes don't have corners, meaning they're non-threatening. Imagine a triangle or a square denoting your progress. Feels off, doesn't it? To me, at least, squares are too drab and boring to be engaging, and look way too much like a regular-ass loading screen. Triangles can be a little confusing, but might be effective. For example.
-Cloudsong? Head on over to NewGrounds, and make sure you feed your NeoPets, cause we're going oollllldschooool!
-Fray Tormenta was a priest who ran an orphanage for over 23 years, supporting it by participating in lucha libre. His legacy has had a great impact on popular culture, inspiring several movies (including the Jack Black film Nacho Libre, which wasn't terrible) and video game charachters including King from the Tekken series (who is also an orphan raising luchadore) and Greco from Chrono Cross.
Pffft... And John Cena's looking like a straight up chump with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Yeah, you visit kids, but do you RAISE THEM?
SM
-BONUS CARD!
SLAYERS OF DECADENCE EPISODE 8
Speaking of raising ninos and fighting, IT'S SLAYERS OF DECADENCE TIME!
Eagle FightsBro and Water Loki continue to raise their children Literal Goat Daniel Bryan and Not Malcolm Reynolds. The campaign is lead by a Entertained Yet Confused Ryan.
Our god pals do this by referencing City Slickers by having the pampered city boy learn the ways of country folk, thereby gaining their respect, Naruto, by- Fuck it, I know Naruto is the best example (or at least the first one I found via Google), but we're going to say Rocky 4, since while no cliff faces are climbed perse, he still goes up in elevation on a structure than can be called a mountain.
Where were we? Right. We also do this by referencing Rocky IV where a man climbs a mountain and learns to punch Communism in its face, and by referencing every movie where a White Person uses The Art of Dance to make Minorities Believe In Themselves. Only instead of minorities, it's People Who Need A New Job and instead of Dance its Wisdom.
It kinda sucks there's only two player characters, but this is another one of those episodes, where it shows how me and Raymond's characters, and how we play and approach RPGs can differ and yet work together at the same time. So really, it's probably better that there's only two players, especially given the "parenting" subtheme (mother/father, brains/brawn, pragmatic/dramatic, etc.)
Again, shoutouts to insert quest here for doing this and Ryan from Rag-Nerd-Rok for being such a good GM.
In this post-stability economy, the opportunities for crowd funding and helping each other have increased ten fold. In the past year one of the more direct and reliable ways for content producers to make money is Patreon, a website that allows you to support artists, musicians and businesses by regular payments.
MC Lars- The newest horse in this race, MC Lars is an independent rapper whose rhymes go all over the place from Post-Punk Laptop Rap, to Lit-Hop to Nerdcore, and even Ska, since that's the only way to get it done these days. This isn't entirely unexpected, since as he prophesied in his song "Download This Song", the "old way" of doing things is becoming less and less applicable to anybody not on the Top 40 Rotation, especially with the line "Music was a product, now it is a service:
(You can tell you're about to listen to this instead of "The Passenger" when you don't hear the cowbells.)
That song is 10 years old. Damn....
$2 seems like a lot per song, but the rewards over that level are really good, including livestream concerts, instrmentals, and free buttons and stuff, it's worth it. Also consider it's going to the artist directly to help out with stuff a larger entity normally pays for, and I pay that much to buy a song in Rock Band (of which Lars has 2 in Rock Band available).
It wasn't a matter of "if" for Lars, but "when".
A Fox In Space- I initially held off on supporting this one because I'm a vengeful idiot who hates people named Matthew Gafford. Then something happened that changed my views, and now I'm showing this Patreon to you all.
Matt is an artist who streams daily working on animation projects. These animation projects are about foxes, that sometimes go into space. This is not in anyway resembling an intellectual property from any video game company. His quality animation can be seen here:
Isn't it AWESOME? I'd be fanboying out about it if it were some
It's a really solid style, like Don Bluth meets Heavy Metal, it looks really well put together (like, foley work and score are on point, which is incredible for a self taught, amateur production), and in no way resembles any previously established IP from an international corporation that can give him a cease and desist. The animations, when they're done, will be available for free on the YouTube channel, but the Patreon is there to enable him working full time. Working on the streams, that is, not on this animation project that is non-profit and a non-commercial parody.
For those of you further behind, this is a cover I did of MC Lars's song "Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock". Part of it spawned from the rumor that Hot Topic was buying out ThinkGeek, and thought "This makes 100% of all the sense."
Now, MC Lars, in his email to be after I sent him this said, "Yeah, but Think Geek is more punk rock than Hot Topic". That's true, ThinkGeek sells tools, and creativity toys. Hot Topic sells, well...
Mostly though this song was born out of the idea that after all I've been through, I'd rather see more creation than consumption when it comes to nerd stuff.
Lemme break it down for you like this:
"Turning your passions into something tangible is nerdcore...":
I'm talking about making stuff: music, fanart/fiction, cosplay, whatever. Do something other than buying a thing and waiting for those on high to make more. Learn something in the process.
At all the cons I play at, I always try to buy at least one homemade
thing from somebody whether it's a comic, a print, a CD, etc. because it
feels good when you put yourself out there, and someone says "YES!",
even it's fan art, because someone had to learn a skill.
"Representing marginalized groups is nerdcore..."
I'm seeing more and more women and POC at cons and making music in the nerdcore scene AND THIS IS A GOOD THING. Some of this shit's pretty fun, and it's fun to see other people joining in.
Also, tying in to the first point, it's easier than ever to have your work published and made your voices heard, a lot of voices people haven't considered before.
"MC Lars is nerdcore..."
Well he did make the song...
The point of all this is, as Neil Gaiman put it: MAKE GOOD ART
This come right off the heels of the Fine Bros. annoncing their licensing of their "_____ REACT" videos. The Fine Bros. don't make anything, they just show people stuff and film their reactions, and then they act like they're changing the world.
"You know that open platform we have for people to submit their creative works? Fuck that, make it more like every other media"
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