Unsought Input

A nerdy little video. I really always like it when you can see pictures in music. I just think it’s cool.

If you look down at the photo of the day you will see some very spirited young Amish girls playing a motorcycle game at Walmart. I thought the scene was pretty cool so I snapped a quick picture of it and walked on by. Later it occurred to me that it would be a pretty neat picture of the day (I have been pretty lax about it lately) and so that is where I put it. Now it seems to be a pretty popular picture up on flickr and I just thought I would share some of the other sites that my picture has been featured on. You can check it out on this feminist blog The F Word or at Wonderland.

You know you want to just laugh or cry with these. For those of you who are internet ignorant of what cosplay is, basically people dress up as cartoon or video game characters (the key to this is that most of the characters who are cosplayed are animated) and walk around anime conventions or sometimes at Halloween as well. Basically one would expect to see this during Halloween but cosplayers take it one step further and dress like this for events and conventions all year long. It’s really a strange hobby and most people who do this spend a lot of time and effort to make their costumes better than anyone else as to always be “pwning n00bs”. I am planning to go undercover one of these days to a convention of supreme nerdlyness so I can get some insider pictures and also really cheap comics and candy. Here are some pictures I didn’t take.

I am sure most people will recognize this famous trio, Mario, his brother Luigi and Princess Peach. This one in my opinion is not so bad. This will be the highlight of our trip through cosplay and for that I apologize. (more…)

See, I told you I wouldn’t let you down. And for your further review, Japanese arcade games part two.

Best Game for People Who’s Parents/Landlord Won’t Allow Pets: Dog Walker

In this game the point is to walk dogs. All sorts of dogs. You actually have a pretty good selection in some of these games, where you have some nice doggies to walk and then you have the pit bull. The game is basically a tread mill that you walk on while holding onto a leash. The antics begin as the dog goes to chase cats, cars, stops to pee, gets into fights with other dogs. Um, actually I don’t know about that because I have only ever seen this game, never played it. But I think that would make it more fun.

My Personal Favorite: Samba De Amigo

Samba is fun. You get your Maracas (which are surprisingly heavy) and you dance. The point is to hit certain heights with the maracas in time to samba style dance music. It’s simple but gets pretty challenging and it’s fun. As long as you like dancing with maracas and samba music. I think I must have spent like ten dollars playing this game when I was in Japan. (more…)

The Japanese have brought us many exciting and original experiences from environmentally friendly roller coasters to the current manga/anime phenomenon and everything between. I just thought I would put up some interesting arcade games that I have seen in my day and a few I found on the internet.

Strangest Arcade Game: IdolMaster

This is a weird one. I actually have never seen this one before but after reading about it I definitely give this one the winner of the strangest Japanese arcade game. This game console surrounds you for the full stereo effect. You get a comfy seat to sit your buns on for the hours you will sit enticed to spend just 100 more yen. So, what is the premise of this game? What do you do?

You manage a pop idol. You change her clothes. You give her dance moves. You pick her music. And you pay a lot of real money to do so. Here is a very detailed description of this game from several first hand encounters.

Coolest Arcade Game Setup: Silent Hill

The Silent Hill franchise is a recognizable name so I don’t think I need to describe play by play what kind of game this is or what you should expect from this. For a horror video game this set up is awesome. A nice creepy ambiance to shoot up some weirdo nurse freaks, body bags and the occasional pyramid head. Especially if the arcade was slightly ill lit in the first place and it was pretty abandoned? This could be a major creep out fest. I really want to play Silent Hill on this. (more…)

Yes, I did it.  My band Killasaurus Visage (me, my brother the shig, my husband and the vic)  played through 58 songs and beat the endless set list on hard and expert.  The songs in the  set list goes can be found here.  Those are not in order  and include both the regular tracks and the bonus songs (I couldn’t find a list online of just the endless set list order and I don’t have the time to type it all out right now, sorry!). Thank god that we didn’t have to play the downloaded content as well cause 58 songs is really pushing the limit of what a group of people can do in one day.

Anyway, here are the facts and what we did to get through it.

• It took us 6 hours and 5 minutes (stopping only for refills and restroom breaks)
• Some of the hardest songs are the bonus songs since you don’t play them as regularly as the other tracks and they are not familiar songs (at least for us)
• If people are playing mixed levels, the lowest level is what everyone will end up beating it as.  The Shig on guitar and The Vic on bass played expert but Ry played drums on hard and I sang on hard (I should have gone on expert but I didn’t want to mess it up for my band!) so we beat the endless set list on hard.
• For your singer: mix lemon juice (I used from concentrate) in with something warm like tea. Don’t skimp on the lemon juice either, I put in about 1/4 a cup into each cup of tea.  Believe me, this works.  When we did the Rock Marathon (18 song set list) I did not use this method and after that your throat feels a little scratchy and achy.  I used this method for the entire 58 song set and my throat felt fine.  A little sore but definitely not as bad as it would have felt had I not done this.
• It’s okay if you fail a song in this set list.  Take a short break and try again.  You will lose fans but you gain them back when you finish the set list.
• Take it easy in the beginning and don’t take long breaks at all.  If you stop you are not going to want to start again.  And I am telling you, you will be exhausted after this (especially your drummer.  Our drummer runs in marathons).  But it’s worth it.

We got 261 out of 290 stars on this set list if you were interested in knowing.   And $34,000.  And 40,000 fans (we failed two songs in this set list so I think we were just earning them back, we had already maxed out the amount of fans we could have on the hard setting).

After you beat it you obtain legendary status and you can feel like a bad ass for playing a rock video game for 6 hours straight.

Check out this cool marching band.  Their halftime show is a video game showcase.  Way cool.  But don’t take my word for it!

If you had played Portals, one of the five games on the Half Life Orange Box available for Xbox 360, then you would know what I am talking about. Or you might have played it on an emulator, which is illegal and you will be found and flogged. But it’s a fun game that makes you think about the important things in life, like not following others commands blindly, whether to destroy your only friend and whether or not there is actually cake. While tooling around on the internet I found this cool site I wanted to share with all of you.

Check out ApertureScience. When you first go there it will look like an old computer with the black and green screen. Some of you may remember those back in the day. Anyway, there are several things you can do here. I don’t want to ruin the fun for anyone, especially those of us who remember how to use these green and black screens, so if are not getting anywhere, click here to be directed to a page that tells you how to do all the fun stuff on this page. I think the computer actually flicked me off while applying to work for Aperture Science. Well, either way, have fun.

And just because it’s the best thing, here is the portal ending song.

I started hearing it this morning, but I guess I should have expected it. With news of the Indians being one win away from the World Series, apparently Fox executives are worried about a “flyover” World Series between Cleveland and Colorado. Boo freaking hoo.

I’ll concede that the potential viewing audiences for a Red Sox-Cubs or a Yankees-Dodgers series could be more numerous than an Indians-Rockies series, just by dint of sheer population. And I could argue that the viewers that matter – the real baseball fans – will watch a World Series no matter who’s playing. Even if it were Florida and Toronto. The only benefit to a coastal series is that all the hangers-on – the girlfriends who wear pink Red Sox caps – might tune in. But if the ads are directed to a hardcore baseball fan, then what good do you think they’ll do for an audience of hangers-on?

But the real problem here is the bigotry of geography. I’m a meat-and-potatoes Ohioan, regardless of where I live. Any time I hear the term “flyover state,” it incenses me more than these East Coasters can understand. I’m proud of where I grew up, and I take particular pride in the success stories to come out of the Midwest. Such as this year’s Indians team. Nevertheless, East Coasters – particularly New Yorkers – feel compelled to treat the vast majority of this country like a third-world hellhole.

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Interesting links we found today:

• Bankrate Living Green Tips »

Who says that nerds won’t make good parents? Oh, no one said that? My bad. I guess I misheard, but here is a list anyway. Oh, and I am too lazy to prioritize these, so they are in no particular order.

1. Who has cooler toys and gadgets than nerds do? I can tell you my husband has three little man armies downstairs that he built from models, a million dolls-oh, I mean action figures- all over the place, card games, board games, you name it. As far as gadgets, how about good computers, video games consoles, large televisions and home theater systems? And let’s not forget about the plethora of DVDs or Blue Ray or whatever you happen to own. The child of a nerd will want for no awesome toys, as the nerdy parents will have already bought them all for themselves.

2. The children of nerds will not be left to watch TV alone for hours on end while the parents ignore their children. Oh no. And I can guarantee you that these children will not be watching The Doodlebops, either. These kids will be watching DVDs of G.I. Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, Sesame Street, Voltron, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many more of our childhood favorites. And we will be sitting right beside them reliving our childhoods.

3. A Surplus of old comic books to read. Your nerd child is years behind on the X Men Series so you had better start reading him/her in the womb. Think about it, if you had the comics you had now as a child (all of them at once, I mean) you may have never left your room. Nerd children will be able to read by the time they are in kindergarten and they will have already read the entire Phoenix Saga. (more…)

We’ve seen a lot of really bad movies based on video games. From Wing Commander to Super Mario Brothers to, well, everything Uwe Boll has ever made. And they don’t seem to be getting any better, or really making much money at the box office, so I can only imagine that producers green light them to punish humanity for some horrible war crime.

Once again, a million random people on the Internet are churning out better video than companies with $100 million dollar budgets. Well, they’re turning out better movie trailers, anyway. Below are the five funniest video game movie trailers we’ve seen on the web.

1. From the geniuses at College Humor, Where the f#ck is Carmen Sandiego

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We’ve shown you the total awesomeness that are Japanese obstacle course competitions. And we’ve brought you the true power and spectacle of Hard Gay. So now head three minutes into the video below to see the Beyond-Ultra-Power-Awesomeness that happens when you combine the two.

Bonus Awesomeness awaits when the British announcer points out that Hard Gay’s competitor “takes one to the old happy sacks”.

The Nintendo Wii is a lot of fun, but it’s in a bit of a new game drought right now. While the rest of us sit with bated breath awaiting Super Smash Brothers and Metroid, some folks have made some Wii games of their own. Or at least they pretended to and put videos on the Internet.

Here’s a whole series of rejected WiiPlay games from the folks at Loading.Ready.Run.

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I am not a very sports oriented person, as several people will tell you. In fact, I learn most all of my American sports knowledge from my mother-in-law. But, I do like extreme sports, like skate boarding, snow boarding, and the Ultimate Viking Challenge. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this challenge, this is possibly the most difficult obstacle course ever made. It was originally a Japanese show but now airs in the US on ESPN and in Europe. I don’t often get the chance to watch the show, but when I do it’s definitely worth it. Anyway, I am not writing about that right now, what I wanted to talk about today, actually to show you a video of today, is Nagano Makoto, the only person so far to get to the final stage of Viking, The Ultimate Challenge. He lost by running out of time in the last five feet of the course. Below is a clip (albeit of very poor quality) of Viking so you get an idea of what is going on there.

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