Armagideon Time

I’m waist deep in the Big Muddy…

…and the opposite bank is still nowhere in sight (though I did somehow manage to squeak out a new ComicPunx post).

The weekend can’t start soon enough. 

Big things are afoot at the day job, so I’m just going to leave you with this while I get things sorted…

It’s no furry silicone monkey doll, but its capacity to elicit existential terror is no less real for its relative subtlety.

It’s the ideal gift for those folks who enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies, but thought they’d have been vastly improved if the characters were unholy amalgamations of Margaret Keane paintings, Stevie Nicks’s wardrobe, shitty original English manga comics, and Bratz dolls!

The safe word…

…is “Crime Alley.”

Now for some links, both timely and slightly dated:

It’s a week for blogoversaries! Dave Ex Machina turns eight! Tarty Tart turns two!

C’mon and get your FIGHT on!

What happens when the forces of Awesome and Weakass collide? Pure comedic genius.

In which a humble mariner shows up the hubristic endeavors of the Massachusetts Tourism Board.

I *heart* the Little Stuffed Bull.

Mark your cosmic calendars, kids.

The Seabrook Meltdowns — co-captained by the fearsome Trina Trioxin — will make their debut alongside the Granite Skate Troopers this Saturday at JFK Coliseum in Manchester, NH.  Be there or be square.

(Big thanks to Ken Lowery for the bat-joke assist.)

When my wife and I divvied up the household chores, I ended up with trash duty.  I make sure stuff is bagged up before the kitchen barrel overflows (most of the time) and that the week’s accumulated garbage gets to the curb on collection days.  It might sound like a pretty low key chore compared to the laundry duty my wife got stuck with, but trust me when I say she got the better end of the bargain. 

There is nothing worse than hauling one’s ass out of bed at six on a muggy collection day morning to discover that the bastard raccoons  (scientific name: Procyon lotor bastardis) have foiled one’s latest refuse-related security measures and left fragrant piles of heat-kissed garbage strewn all over the patio.  The smell isn’t so much of an issue for me.  I did, after all, grow up in North Woburn during the early 1980s, where the greasy rancid tang wafting from the town dump was a much a part of summer as the scents of fresh cut grass and meat grilling on a barbecue.

No, it’s not the smell that makes me rue the day I chose what seemed to be an easy out in our domestic division of labor.  It’s the squiriming, squggling masses of maggots infesting the spilled trash.  I am not a squeamy guy by nature, but something about maggots’ waxy, wiggly segmented larval bodies triggers my gag reflex. 

I know I’m not alone when I state that I don’t want to look at maggots, I don’t want to handle them — even through a pair of thick work gloves — and I sure as Shinola didn’t ask for Marvel to create a fifth-string X-character based on the filthy little creatures…

…yet, somehow, each of those nightmares have come to pass. 

The Winchester House that is the X-franchise has no shortage of questionable inhabitants.  While embarrassments like Adam-X or Stacy X at least made sense from a mercenary, fan-pandering standpoint, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting — much less demanding – a dude named after a type of vermin known for feasting on shit…

…whose mutant power was the ability to summon a pair of omnivorous slugs from his belly and then absorb the “power” of whatever crap they ate, turning his skin blue in the process…

…and who talked (as per the Claremontean precedent for international characters) exclusively in an over the top form of South African street slang…

…and whose physique and appearance changed radically depending on which artist got roped into working on Uncanny (or “just plain”) X-Men that month.

Maggott (the extra “t” is for extra terrible) made his debut in a 1997 X-arc that involved his quest to track down Magneto or “Joseph” or whatever the heck that character was supposed to be at the moment.  To be quite honest, the X-books have been an impenetrable mess since 1985 (with the exception of all but the last couple issues of Grant Morrison’s run).   I tried to decipher what was going down during Maggott’s sojourn with the team, but was unable to work past the riot of recursive plot points, confusingly “kewl” art, and rampant font abuse.  Toss in dialect writing which comes off as more autistic than authentic (“HEY GUYS I LEARNED THREE BITS OF PRETORIAN SLANG AND I’M GOING TO USE THEM OVER AND OVER AND OVER”) and you’ve got a pretty good sense where my tolerance for lousy comics ends. 

It’s no mean feat to be the worst character in a late 1990s X-book, but Maggott pulled it off with wiggle-room to spare, which is why is why he was a shoe (fly) in as this week’s Nobody’s Favorite.

Oh, like you don’t have a skeleton or three in your musical closet…

#724: Human League – Heart Like a Wheel

#1376: Supertramp – It’s Raining Again

#611: Foreigner – Juke Box Hero

As I mentioned during the first Blast Processed Life post, one of the deciding factors behind my acquisition of a Genesis in the June of 1990 was Sega’s limited-time offer of a free Power Base Converter peripheral and choice of launch title with the purchase of their 16-bit console.

The Power Base Converter, a clunky pass-though device which allowed one to play Master System games on the Genesis (though the actual backwards compatibility was built into the Genesis system’s chipset),  was the real draw, as I had a huge library of SMS games and an increasingly unreliable console on which to play them.  

I was a bit less enthusiastic about the choice of free games Sega offered though the promotion, consisting as they did of so-so (Space Harrier II) to terrible (Super Thunder Blade) versions of older arcade titles with a few sports games and forgettable original efforts thrown into the mix.  I eventually decided — by default — upon Last Battle…

…a side-scrolling beat ‘em up set in a harsh post-apocalyptic world where burly dudes in high fashion bikerware wage high-stakes martial arts battles over the Earth’s scarce remaining resources.

If that sounds a lot like the premise to Fist of the North Star (a.k.a. Hokuto No Ken), that’s because Last Battle was a license-scrubbed and sanitized localization of a Japanese game based on the ultra-violent anime and manga franchise.  (Nor was it the first time Sega pulled this trick, either.)

Instead of whipping up a brand new storyline and cast of characters, the folks in charge of bringing the game to the North American market went the copy and replace route, retaining the source material’s confusing backstory of dynastic betrayal but with new and laughable character names.  For example, the taciturn, organ-detonating protagonist Kenshiro…

…was stuck with the Eye of Argon-esque handle “Aarzak” (short for “Aaron Zachary Throckmorton III”). 

In addition, Last Battle dropped the (tame) gore effects associated with the Hokuto No Ken franchise…

…and indulged in a little pallete -swapping to make the bosses (destined for  grisly demises) a little less “human” in appearance…because making someone pop open and explode like an oversized zit is wrong unless said person has turquoise skin.

Weird localization decisions aside, Last Battle is a perfect example of how an innovative and potentially great good entertaining game can get hamstrung by a number of fatal flaws. 

The game’s visuals and sounds (in that Phillip-Glass-meets-Mike-Oldfield-meets-Pink-Lady way common to early Genesis titles) are great, and the punch/kick/jump configuration made possible by the Genesis’s three-button controller represented a paradgim shift in how one played console beat ‘em ups.

Last Battle also took a page from Bionic Commando, Super Mario Brothers 3, and Clash at Demonhead in terms of level design that incorporated branching paths laid out on a boardgame-styled world map…

…with diverse locations ranging from typical punch-and-run levels to obstacle-filled “dungeons” to boss-fight arenas.  Finishing an area usually results in a short and nonsensical encounter with a supporting character who grants Aarzak some form of power-up. 

In theory, Last Battle could have been a 16-bit, single player successor to the much-loved NES RPG/beat ‘em up, River City Ransom.  In practice, however, the game as a whole falls way short of the sum of its parts.

Despite the Last Battle‘s nominally branching pathways, there is a very strict linear route which must be followed to complete Aarzak’s travels, and it happens to be the most punishing and repetitive one.  Even worse, the game is of the old fashioned “finish in one sitting” school of design, having neither a save nor password system…

…which wouldn’t be an insurmountable issue if Last Battle didn’t rely so heavily on a slow process of attrition to make up the game’s challenge.  While this may have been intended to make sidetrips for a needed strength or health boost a strategic decision, it too often results in a completely disproportionate cost-to-gain ratio exacerbated by the game’s fondness for bleeding Aarzak out with frustrating juggle hits from both enemies and the environment.

As much as my brother and I (Fist of the North Star fans, the both us) tried to enjoy Last Battle, the game’s irritating flaws ended up being too much to bear. 

In fact, the only vivid memory I have of the game comes from a few years after the cartridge was consigned to the back shelf of our entertainment center and during one of the rougher patches in our fraternal relationship.  For some reason I dropped the “All is not well with the world” line from the game’s title crawl into a conversation we were having.  My brother wracked his brain to remember where it came from, and assumed it was from some lofty work of literature.

I popped Last Battle into the console and squatted down in front of the TV, revealing the source of the quote while I mocked him for being pretentious.  Not realizing how pissed off he was, I gave him a back-handed shove…which he responded to by tackling me and pummeling my head with his fists.  I came out of it with some bruises on my face and a temporary loss of hearing in my left ear. 

It was the last of our kiddie-crap physical confrontations.  He thinks it’s because he finally whomped me.  I think it’s because we finally grew the fuck up.  Whatever the case, it was certainly more entertaining and memorable than Last Battle ever was.

In the three months since Oscar passed away, Maura and I have been looking high and low for a canine capable of following the in the Tan Man’s footsteps.

It was tough going. We were spoiled by Oksie, who was a remarkable dog in both appearance and personality. We weren’t aiming for an Oskie 2: Grumplectric Chugaloo, but we did want a male small breed type who would be able to deal with a rowdy big (in both senses of the word) sister and a clan of scheming cats.

We did stumble upon several promising leads at various shelters in the area, but logistics and timing prevented us from finalizing any of these adoptions. The last (and most heartbreaking) of these fell through at the beginning of this week, when we were in the final stages of adopting a puggle from a kill shelter through a rescue group…and a another rescue group swooped in at the last minute and claimed the pup.

It was at that point that my old man took it upon himself to save the day by trekking up to New Hampshire and bringing back a Boston Terrier-beagle mix puppy that caught his eye.

Meet Baron Oliver von Oxenfree…

…or “Ollie,” for short.

Where Oskie was an obsessive (but lovable) grump, Ollie is a mellow little sweetheart eager to win approval from Addy the Big Red Dog and members of our feline conclave.  (What they think of Ollie has yet to be decided, though it’s currently leaning toward the positive.)

It’s been a while — as in “thirty-five years” — since the last time I’ve had to deal with a young puppy, and the wife and I have begun the long hard process of housebreaking and crate training…

…though not without some moments of indulgent backsliding.

My memories of White Wolf’s World of Darkness games involve terrifying abhumans in leather jackets attempting to prey upon rightfully disgusted innocents…

…and that was before the dudes in the sci-fi club broke out the dice and character sheets. KA-ZING!

My thinly veiled contempt aside, there’s no denying that the franchise’s clever formula of “Horror Archetype: The Gerunding” has been one of the bigger success stories in recent RPG history. In recognition of that big fish, small pond achievement, here’s the “toxins and disease” table from the 2001 Mummy: The Resurrection sourcebook…

…covering the heath risks a dessicated corpse might face, from Ebola and bleach right down to the pause that refreshes…if you know what mean.

There ain’t no flies on ol’ Boris.  They’re repelled by the stink of the embalming tinctures.

My wife was getting ready to do a little shopping yesterday afternoon when she noticed that there was a squadron of news copters hovering over Mt. Misery. We’re used to the occasional rush hour flyover, due to our house’s relative proximity to the I-93/I-95 interchange, but it was pretty clear from the positioning and number of choppers that this was more than a backup on the northbound off-ramp.

A SWAT raid on a meth lab? Nope. A domestic disturbance turned hostage situation? Oh, please. There’s only one thing that could attract the combined air power of Boston’s news media outlets to a single location.

A runaway dump truck, which went rogue after its driver allegedly forgot to use the parking brake while offloading asphalt on the second steepest grade in Woburn.  (The steepest is on Stoneham Street, leading up to my neighborhood.  It’s the only place where I’ve ever had to put Super Lumina into low gear during the icy season.)

Interestingly enough (to me, at least), the truck began its uncontrolled descent of Warren (pronounced “Wah-in”) Avenue by the former site of the Choate Hospital –where I worked as a teen — and came to stop, thanks to a utility pole’s heroic act of sacrifice, right across the street from the former site of Nick’s Food Mart — where I also worked as a teen.

There is no way of fathoming the intentions of runaway construction vehicles, but I can’t help wondering if the dumptruck had some strange agenda involving my years as a minimum wage service worker.

While it was entertaining to see my neighborhood get some face time over this community theater version of Maximum Overdrive, the coverage trigger one of my long standing pet peeves — the one regarding the correct pronunciation of Woburn.

There is a tendency among non-locals and those (such as newscasters) who’ve turned their backs on their non-rhotic roots to pronounce the city’s name as “woo-burn” — or worse, “woe-born” — which flows off the tongue as elegantly as a barrel of cinderblocks being dumped down a flight of stairs.

It’s pronounced “woo-bin,” okay?  Though rooted in the regional accent, ”woo-bin” has become the correct ideomatic pronunciation of the city’s name.  Worcester is “wuss-tah,” Haverhill is “hay-vrill,”  Billerica is “bill-rik-ah,” and Woburn is “woo-bin.”  It doesn’t matter how it seems like it should be pronounced, it is pronounced “woo-bin.”  End of story.

I’m no stranger to horrible things.  I was taught by my old man, a decorated special forces vet,  to shield myself with an aura of jaded detatchment when faced with existential terrors.  It’s a talent which has served me well over the years and has given me an edge when dealing with those who are unable to confront things like Google Earth images of North Korean medical experimentation camps or photos of mutilated World War I soldiers with the same degree of bemused resignation.

So when my wife directed my attention to this recent tabloid advertisement…

…my natural reaction was  AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! EEEEEEEEEWWWWWW! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

…and in conclusion, AAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOO! AAAAAAAH!