Niceness is Fun
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Tag Archives: For Fun
Happy Columbus Day
Reposting the good Admiral’s response to his critics:
Niceness is Fun
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Flotsam: Slumming It
1. For one reason or another (none reflecting well on me), this is Sunday flotsam. And Sunday flotsam on the Feast of the Assumption at that, yet I currently have nothing edifying to say about Our Lady.
2. So instead, I’m just going to slum it and drop a few of my favorite riffs from Mst3k and Rifftrax: ones the I’ve found myself referencing or quoting most often or that seem to contain a bit of hidden practical wisdom, or are just plain funny.
3. On Raising the Stakes:
Movie Character: “They say it could blow up the universe.”
Tom Servo: “Or worse!”
-Epsiode 3:18 Fugitive Alien II
4. Where the Blame Lies:
(Discussing with a teacher how one of his high school basketball players is illiterate)
Coach: “If he can’t read, how’d he get through school?”
Mike: “That would mean we absolutely su…oh.”
-Reading: Who Needs It?
5. Best Laid Plans…
Soldier: “The electrical shocks don’t seem to bother Gamera at all!”
Tom Servo: “Hm, and I was counting very heavy on them….”
-Episode 3:02 Gamera
6. Practicality:
Mike: “My lunchbox can withstand a nuclear blast.”
-Episode 8:22 Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
7. Goes Without Saying, Really
Sheriff: “How long would it take you to get to Springdale?”
Deputy: “Maybe an hour, maybe less.”
Crow: “Longer if I die.”
-Episode 3:13 Earth vs. the Spider
8. Call it What it Is
Tommy: “Trumpy! you can do magic!”
Crow: “It’s called ‘Evil’, kid.”
-Episode 3:03 Pod People
9. Good Advice:
Customer: “I’ll remember you if you just…”
Bill: “Do your ****ing job.”
Customer: “…remember me.”
Bill: “And do your ****ing job.”
–Remember Me
10. Embarrassing
Mike: “We have got to get organized! We should not be losing to grasshoppers, people!”
-Episode 5:17 The Beginning of the End
11. Logic
Kevin (as Lupita): “Did Daddy really think he was going to find a job at 4am on Christmas morning?”
–Santa Claus
12. Humble Beginnings
(Upon seeing Clint Eastwood’s first onscreen film role)
Crow: “Ah, this guy’s bad. This was his first and only film.”
-Episode 8:01 Revenge of the Creature
Interpretive Tech Companies
I somehow keep thinking about The Transformers: The Movie lately. In particular, I found myself rewatching the attached clip more than once, mostly for the sheer joy of Welles’s performance.
But today it occurred to me that it isn’t just a scene of Orson Welles turning Frank Welker into Leonard Nimoy for marketing purposes (though goodness knows that’s interesting enough when you put it that way). It’s also an interpretive illustration of what dealing with Amazon or Google or Apple or one of the other tech companies is like: a monolithic, all powerful entity offering you what seems like a sweet deal…except that “your bargaining posture is highly dubious” and the alternative to acceptance is to “proceed on your way to oblivion.”
And in any case, the evil, world-devouring monster doesn’t actually have your best interests at heart and is almost certainly going to betray you once it gets what it wants anyway.
And come to think of it, Unicron kind of looks like an abstract version of the Apple logo (okay, that’s a stretch).
Some Old Gimp Pics
I spent part of today sorting through the bloated image folders on my computer, and in the process rediscovered some old photo manips I did. I now pass a selection on to you:
First we have some scenes from the highly-anticipated live action ‘Super Smash Brothers’ film:
Or a Live Action Kim Possible movie (er, a good one, I mean):
And unrelated, but bonus points for whoever gets this one:
Fun Fact of the Day
During the filming of Rocky IV, director-star Sylvester Stallone thought it would be a good idea (for realism) to do a shot where Dolph Lundgren actually punched him as hard as he could.
The next thing he knew, Stallone was spending four days in intensive care with a bruised heart.
He then had to convince his skeptical insurance company that the injury had, in fact, been caused by a punch and not (as is usually the case with that sort of injury) from being hit by a truck. He finally showed them the footage and exclaimed, “Dolph is a truck!”
Stallone later admitted that this had not been a good idea.
Ross’s Game Dungeon Does America
For this week’s Saturday entertainment, I offer the 2018 4th of July (sort of) episode of Ross’s Game Dungeon, where he reviews The Crew and takes a cross-country tour of the United States.
I haven’t kept up on the game itself in the intervening years, nor its sequel, so I don’t know what the state of the series is, but I have to say that I agree with Ross that I love just the idea of a giant, continuous map of a miniaturized version of the United States, and that you could really just sell the game on that alone. No story, just the chance to drive around the country, see the sights, learn bits of trivia, and maybe have the option to play some mini-games, like races or stunts or something. I would absolutely buy a game like that, assuming it wasn’t a glorified rental like this game is.
(The size and scope of the map also makes me dream of an ‘Arkham City’-style sandbox game for Godzilla: maybe with a miniaturized version of the Pacific Ocean and Japan, plus some other coastal regions and islands. Better not dwell on that too much, or I’ll get depressed that it doesn’t exist).
In any case, enjoy Ross’s tour of America. Stay to the end for a visit to my hometown of Detroit.
The Question Song
Does this count as Saturday Entertainment? It’ll have to I guess.
Mst3k Assignment Venezuela
Kind of busy right now, so for today’s Saturday entertainment, here’s a small Mst3k treat.
This was a short that wasn’t connected to any specific episode. Instead it was created for the planned ‘Mst3k CD-Rom’ project that was never completed. The short, however, found its way into the fan community and eventually onto DVD. I now present it to you (excuse the substandard sound and the big time indicator in the upper left).
The short tells of an American engineer working for Creole oil and his experience of relocating to Venezuela and discovering all that that then-vibrant and growing country had to offer. From our perspective, it’s actually a little heartbreaking: this is what Venezuela used to look like before Socialism.
But even with that, the riffing is still firing on all cylinders. Enjoy!
