Link Roundup Day

I do this all the time for my work blog, PPC Hero, and today I’m bringing it to you.

You can also refer to this as ‘Pete’s too lazy and unimaginative to create new content, so instead he’s going to give you a list of more interesting things to read’. I know, you’re sad. You’ll be ok though.

With that, I’m done. Next week I’ll post something more creative …

October 29, 2008 | Links, random

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My All-Time Favorite Original Nintendo Games

I’ve been wanting to do this list, ever since I got the motivation to make my site and this blog. For most people around my age, growing up and playing NES were synonymous. And awesome. There were countless games … Many good, many just plain terrible. But I devised a plan to come up with my ten favorite Nintendo games, and man, it was harder than I ever thought possible. Now I know how it feels to be like those tools on dating shows that have to eliminate people or like Flavor Flav who carefully (or drunkenly) gives giant oversized clocks to scheming ex-strippers and drug addicts … Or not. But my point remains. It took me two hours to get a list of 25 games, and then to pare it down to ten. Plus, I got lost on this awesome website, SydLexia.com. Definitely some good reading there.

Enough babbling, here’s my Top TEN NES Games (In no particular order, box art borrowed from Wikipedia) - Be forewarned, this is a doozy.

Mike Tyson’s Punch Out was awesome. It was a classic 80’s game that reinforced broad stereotypes. Soda Popinski, that drunk Russian.  Don Flamenco, the sweet talking, sissy-lover boy. Bald Bull, the giant, scary Turk. Fatty McFatterson King Hippo, who you have to hit in the gut and he can’t get back up. Great Tiger, the Indian dude who sports a turbin and can warp around all crazy like. And of course, Mike Tyson, who was nearly impossible to beat … Until that whole rape thing, where he get owned by Nintendo and replaced by the generic Mr. Dream. Who doesn’t remember the patterns to beat all these guys? 15 years later? That’s the sign of a great game. Bonus points for Mac’s hot pink jumpsuit and that whole cut scene in between each fight with the trainer. Sweet bike dude!

Nerdy, yes. Really nerdy, yes. Awesome, check. This was really the start of the RPG genre (along with Dragon Quest of course). RPG = Role Playing Game. Yep, kind of like the video game equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons mixed with some Magic - The Gathering cards for good measure. Imagine hordes of pimply nerds talking about equipping level 20 swords for their warriors and casting spells with their blue mages and other awesome things like that. All that being said, seeing as how this is my list, I am including it. They have made like 20 Final Fantasy games after this one, and I would say I’ve played through at least half of them. They are long, often repetitive, sometimes with cheesy storylines, but super addicting all in one. Based on the innovative factor alone, Final Fantasy belongs in the top ten list. *On a side note, I hate MMO games like World of Warcraft that have spawned from the RPG genre. But that’s a story for another day.

If you don’t like this game, you are inferior. This game was an epic adventure. It was huge. It had great bosses, items, secrets, dialogue, music, and controls. It spawned the Zelda franchise, which has made sweet games for every Nintendo console since. A Link to the Past is one of my top 5 video games of all time (That would be the Super Nintendo version for those who are inferior). I am playing Zelda on the DS and it’s awesome. Zelda games are awesome. If you don’t agree, you fail. Writing about this game has me humming the music, because its that memorable. I will admit, though, that as I was playing this through a couple weeks ago, I got to that stupid desert maze where you have some random arbitrary path to follow (which I obviously didn’t remember), got pissed, threw my controller, kicked the dog, and quit. True story. Except for the dog part.

One of my fond memories growing up is playing Metroid until my hands bled. Or until one of my older brothers stole the controller from me. Probably a lot more of the second scenario than the first. As the killer box art proudly displays, Metroid was a great “Adventure Series”, as referenced by the Pitfall-esque guy swinging over a body of water of some sort. Which is completely irrelevant. And stupid. But anyways, Metriod was awesome. I still remember the tension of trying to get out of that final base with the clock ticking down, and then getting to play as Samus with her helmet off, which was infinitely more cool then than it is now. It was a big deal back then for a chick to be in a videogame I suppose. And who doesn’t remember the Justin Bailey password? Ok I didn’t. But now I do.  Leave me alone.

The Grand-Daddy. The Big Lebowski. The Godfather. The Founding Father. The Cool Pimp that smacked any game that got in the way. Yes, Mario. MARIO. I don’t really know what else to say about it. I’m not sure that its possible to include any sort of informative, authoritative list on NES games without giving mention to it somewhere.  Mario made eating mushrooms to make you double in size, warping through gigantic pipes, shooting fireballs, climbing mysterious vines, and Bowser all seem like normal, everyday occurrences. Mario also had those warps, for the lazy. Gotta cater to lazy gamers, as they tend to go hand in hand. Lastly, I might add that Super Mario Bros eventually led to the creation of MarioKart 64, which is bar-none the best competitive game in the history of videogames.

Enter everyone’s “What the %^&&^*$# is Super Dodge Ball???!!?!?!?!111one!11″ comments here. I could care less. If you played this game, you know why it’s on this list. It is awesome. Plus, I owned kids in it so that always helps too. I included the screenshot above in case you have never seen it. So yes, its a dodgeball videogame. Dodgeball in elementary school gym class was great, and so is this game. The super moves are what really makes it shine. I would say go rent it and play it, but that really isn’t feasible, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it if you haven’t ever played this little gem. The models are in the same mold as River City Ransom (another awesome game, made my top 25) and World Cup Soccer (good as well). Look at ol’ Lady Liberty. She’s ‘merica. Freedom. It isn’t free. Stay with me. Buck O’five.

(It’s from Team America if you are completely lost. Team America is a movie, if you are beyond lost)

Castlevania 3 really defined the series on NES, for me anyways. The time element, and the different characters, plus the graphics and gameplay were first class. Castlevania is another series that just keeps on giving, they are pumping ‘em out left and right, which is usually a good thing. Plus, YOU CAN WIN A TRIP TO DRACULA’S HOMETOWN! HELLO! I LOVE GOING TO SCARY PARTS OF EASTERN EUROPE TO LEARN ABOUT VAMPIRES! SIGN ME UP! Sorry about the caps, but it had to be done. That is probably the worst vacation I could think of, but I love the fact that this promotion made its way onto the box. Umm … so, Castlevania rocked, Castlevania 3 rocked more, ‘cuz Stone Cold said so.

I’m lumping the original Tecmo Bowl and Super Tecmo Bowl together, just so you know. How great was it to pass to dudes offscreen 90% of the time? It sounds so awful, but it was so great. Running and beating tackles, bragging rights on the line. Bo Jackson and Walter Payton being Gods among Men. Speaking of Bo, check out this video under the gigantic box art:

Yeah. Only in the glory that is Tecmo Bowl (and Super Tecmo Bowl) on the NES.

This may be another game that some think doesn’t deserve to be on the Top Ten list. For me, it definitely does. Collecting the scrabble pieces to spell “Nintendo” and upgrading your ride, All the weapons, the variety in tracks, the speed, really make this game special. Plus, RARE developed it. RARE made awesome games for years and years. RC Pro Am is definitely one of them. I do remember this game being rather challenging, but I won’t take off too much for that. Filling your trophy shelf with all that Gold was always a good feeling. 32 Tracks of Racing Thrills won’t steer you wrong. Bad pun, I’m aware.

I definitely lied when I said that the list was in random order. The first nine are in random order. Mario 3 is #1. Mario 3 just might be the best game ever made, period. Building on the mechanics from the first two, while including a variety of wrinkles and depth, and you have Mario 3. Mario 3 is pro, other games are amateur. All the worlds were crazy, and varied. All the powerups were awesome. As were the levels. As were the multitudes of secrets, extras, and easter eggs. I’m sure there were like 3 Nintendo Power strategy guides devoted solely to Mario 3. Watch this video, and prepare to be awed. It is real, and it is mind-boggling. It’s eleven minutes long, and its the entire game, perfect.

Other Games I could have included:

And there you have it. This took hours, and I don’t care at all. It was fun reminicsing. I know you guys have opinions on this, this subject is more heated than anything else EVER. So let me know what you think. I see you people have been reading and not commenting. I’m on to your shenangans.

October 21, 2008 | Games
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Blog Design Changes

<!– ckey=”74588D7E” –>Well, I finally decided to do something about the generic template for the blog. If you can’t see very well, I changed the font and color scheme to match the rest of my website. One of these days, I’m going to update it to look exactly like the rest of the site.

Wouldn’t hold your breath though.

At least I did all of these changes on my own, doing the coding myself and creating my own images, unlike a certain friend of mine *COUGH COUGH PHIL COUGH COUGH*

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October 17, 2008 | blog

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Mail Goggles for Gmail - Your own online sobriety test

Beer goggles for your email

Beer goggles for your email

Last Week, In this post from the Gmail blog, we heard about Mail Goggles, a mechanism from the labs at Google that lets you set times and dates for your account to force you to correctly solve math problems before it will send that email that took you 30 minutes to type (and correct, and correct). This is hilarious, for a few reasons.

For one, my buddy Eric had his brother’s Gmail login information, and set the slider to the hardest difficulty level, for all hours of the day, ensuring that his brother would be fairly annoyed whenever he tried to send an email. We only wish that he had set up a camera so we could all be a witness. Maybe its not funny at all … I laughed though.  Even better, look at this example:

Try to do this without using a calculator. Granted, this is on level 1 out of 5. Here’s an example from level 5 - 207+126. I could definitely see someone having serious difficulty solving this … unless you cheat with a calculator. Who does math by hand anymore anyways? Further, it has a ticker, Jack Bauer style! I hope it has some sound effects to make you sweat. Okay, I tested it, no sound. Lame. But still, the ominous countdown looms, which is good stuff. When it gets to 0, it resets with the following message “Oops, looks like your reflexes are a little slow. Try again.” It should say something better along the lines of “Wow … Really? I mean wow … really? Really? Wow.” and then whack you upside the head. Or, it could at least say something like “Hey, you’re the moron that enabled this in the first place. If you pre-emptively put a mechanism to try to stop yourself from emailing at certain times of the week, maybe you need to re-evaluate your life. Perhaps even get a job and cut your hair, hippie.”

There are some other (mostly) useless Gmail plugins from Google labs if you feel like wasting more time. Gotta give them props for the goggles though, hilarious if nothing else. I think what everyone really needs is Text Goggles - The same principle but for texting. That would actually help, as people are … <insert insult here> when they text after a night of drinking.

And props to Eric for the zinger on his brother, zing is a word you will see frequently on here so get used to it.

October 14, 2008 | web stuff

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Microsoft - What Really Grinds My Gears


Since Seth McFarland stole my name for Family Guy, I have no problem using this image or its theme for the rant you are about to encounter: That being said, I welcome you to Microsoft - What Really Grinds My Gears. I have collected input from friends, colleagues, Gary Coleman, Oompa Loompas, ManBearPig, Nibbler, Blaze AND Lazer from the ORIGINAL American Gladiators, AC Slater, DonkeyLips from Salute Your Shorts, and myself to put together this nice little list of reasons why M$ (trendy/nerdy way people abbreviate Microsoft to show their disdain) fails.

Allow me to say that I don’t really hate Microsoft. In fact, I’m a big fan of XP, their older Office Suite, and 360’s are pretty cool as well.

Enough chit-chat, let’s get down to business with some handy-dandy bullet points. Actually, make that a numbered list. Chyeah.

  1. Vista - More specifically, their incredibly lame “User Account Control”  commie feature that was graciously given to new Vista users. M$ is basically saying to everyone, “You are far too stupid to do anything without having us intervene and annoy the living hell out of you on a consistent basis.” Good game Microsoft, good game. In case you don’t know what I’m babbling about, it’s the feature that literally asks “Hey idiot, are you sure you want to open that folder?” and then makes you click “YES BUGGER OFF” every matter of minutes. You have to Google how to turn in off, and for that, Microsoft fails. Epically. Monumentally. Someotherbigword-ally.
  2. Office 2007 - Wow, it’s bad.
    • Ever seen a newbie (noob, rook, amateur) try to use it? It is pretty entertaining. Most people can’t even figure out how to save files, thanks to their sweet “ribbon” design concept. I’m talking about this: ugh. Stupid. Their whole nav bar layout is just bad. Baddies Town, population Microsoft. Zing! Take that losers!
    • .docx extensions - Again, why? To make things difficult and to try to force people to upgrade? Of course. It’s a new format that uses XML, so apparently that requires changing the extension and forcing users of older versions to download a hack so they can open it. Ask a professor how much they appreciate the new format. Or ask me. It sucks.
  3. Speaking of the 360, their controller is pretty sweet. So I wanted to buy one for my PC, as a controller does have it’s advantages over the mouse/keyboard combo (i.e. Sports games), until I found out they are 65 bucks. For a controller. I know that the 360 ones are not that expensive. As such, I’ll have to keep pewpew’ing with my mouse and keyboard.
  4. Microsoft failed enough with Vista to allow Apple people to actually have a legitimate argument about their OS, triggering the endless barrage of awful, awful apple commercials with that tool/idiot hipster, yes, this guy: This guy is lame. And yes, those are my MS paint skills at work. 10 bucks says this guy is exactly like his character from Waiting, which is a great movie, except for when he is crying and whining the whole time, much like I currently am.
  5. Internet Explorer - First, I think it’s hilarious that they touted their tabbed windows in the new versions, as if that fooled anyone (I’m sorry if they fooled you, Firefox was doing it long before). Further, you can’t delete it! Microsoft will not let you delete IE from your computer.
  6. Outlook 2003 - Maybe its just me, but no matter what I do, my times are behind an hour. So when I’m at work, meetings creep up on me, as do deadlines and other things. I can’t seem to find the fix. It could be me, but it happened to two other people at my office as well. Maybe we’re all a little slow, who knows.

And with that, I’m done. Anyone disagree with me? Or want to rant, feel free to comment.

October 8, 2008 | IT

2 Comments 

What not to do when changing or updating your blog

Wow … So I have spent the past two hours reinstalling my blog after what I thought was a minor change completely wrecked my database structure and blog in general (plus Vista’s explorer ftp sucks hard).

A few words of wisdom:

That being said, happy blogging and three cheers for stupid plugins that don’t follow standard protocols!

October 1, 2008 | IT

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