(here we go again)

Before we delve into this album, let me give you a tad bit of enlightenment, only because I can confidently say that this is not a band that many of you have heard of, or perhaps you have if you are a fan of the Polyvinyl Co. label.


(American Football, 1998)

American Football was a brief alternative/emo/math-rock band, consisting of the majestic trio of indie-legend, Mike Kinsella (of Owen fame), Steve Lamos, and Steve Holmes. This band was almost exclusively a side project, with all three members involved in different projects for Polyvinyl, before merging to form this group. The band recorded this album in late 1997-early 1998 before recording their full-length, self titled LP, American Football, which I will be reviewing next week. The band was praised almost universally for their The group performed a few live shows locally split a year after the second album's release after becoming nothing more than a studio project.

View on Vimeo.

(The band performing live in 1998. This is, perhaps, the only footage of the band peforming)

I was contemplating even reviewing this. I felt it was sort of unfair to review a three track, twelve minute EP like I would a full length album. But alas, I am giving this album a 10/10*.

Yes, a 10/10*.

This is what I would like to call a "seasonal album". Oh what is that? Well sit down and I'm gon' learn ya.
A seasonal album is an album that sounds better/worse at a certain point of the year. This could also apply to emotions, people, surroundings, pretty much anything you can associate an emotion to. I'm supposing that the time of year that it is now in Central New Jersey, (winter, fucking cold.) can contribute to the feelings I have towards this album.

Now, I'm not some pretentious dork who will cry and jack off listening to Hawthorne Heights because they may talk about something I have encountered in my life, but I can definitely relate to a song sometimes and have a feeling stick out. I listened to this album walking down the cold dead streets of my development to go to the 7-11 up the street to buy some beef patties and green tea (a favorite for me. If any of you ladies want to please me one day, take a note.)

I exited my home, shortly after downloading the album for $3.87 (LIKE COME ON), wrapped my scarf, and pressed play. The first song on this album is called "The One with The Tambourine". I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with a soft guitar and drum combo, given that the number one term associated with this group is EMO, which is synonymous nowadays with

oh jesus....

ANYWAY. "The Boy With The Tambourine" has a very soft tone, with silky, dramatic vocals to compliment it. I can't really gather the meaning behind the lyrics, besides it being about a break up with a true love and wishing to forget about them. Either way, it is very nicely done. It's pretty sounding. I like pretty sounds. Ehhhhhhhh prettyyfdcdz

The next up was "Letters and Packages". The song is a pint slower and melancholic compared to the track before. The same premise of break up stuff occurs here, however, you get the impression of him not being whiny like certain bands nowadays, but rather just desperate and actually upset about it. The lyrics appear to be regarding (who I believe is) Mike as a thirteen year old, brokenhearted and innocent, just wishing he and his love were older, and perhaps it could have worked out. I have had my heart broken and have the spot on feeling he is conveying. At this point in the listening, I pause the album, as I have reached my destination. I got my beef patties and tea and was ready to move on.

The next track was "Five Silent Miles". This track was an instrumental, and if anything, the music spoke for itself. It's a sigh of defeat. It is very slow, very sad, and very fitting for the cloudy, cold weather that befell my silent neighborhood. I didn't cry or anything, but I felt hollowed. This actually felt like it moved me. It seems that everything around me was synced to what I was listening to. Then after much build and four minutes of sound track, we are left with a *tsst*, and silence. I used the next three minutes reflecting on what I have listened to. I went back inside, went up to my room, and played it at least twice.

The thing about this is I'm not sure if I would have felt the same effect if I listened to this in July at noon as I would in December at noon. So, I will have to come back and update this once the equinox takes place and I could come back to it.

As for now, this album is a 10/10, and I highly encourage BUYING this album. It's only four bucks. Maybe you will get the same effect? Who knows. I recommend listening to this from start to finish alone on a cold day. Walk around a bit. Just experience it.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/american-football-ep/id30634400

Stay blessed, kids.

*as of December 22nd, 2013

2014

a short story by spaghettibicycle

based off an idea by dewmann

In the year 2005, three young men created the most influential website known to man. It was a vide-hosting site named VideoVerse. It was slightly successful in its first few months, but soon grew to major popularity. In 2006, the three men were approached by the people behind an equally influential site: Bubble. At that point in time, Bubble was just a search engine, a highly successful one at that. The three men ended up selling their site to Bubble for $650,000,000. For six years, everything was fine and dandy.

In 2011, Bubble launched a social network, BubbleCircle. They had been working hard on BubbleCircle, and had high expectations for it. Unfortunately, only 150,000,000 people had joined by November 2011, which they viewed as a disappointment. They then changed the layout of VideoVerse, causing a short-lived uproar.

In 2012, Bubble started asking the millions upon millions of VideoVerse users if they would like to change their usernames to their full names by joining BubbleCircle. While a few did so, many others politely declined. BubbleCircle responded with the message, "OK, we'll ask you again later." Late October, they changed the layout again, making it feel more like a complicated social networking site than a video-hosting site.

In 2013, the unthinkable happened: the beginning of the end. Despite BubbleCircle now having 540,000,000 members, they wanted more. So Bubble made it impossible for people to comment on VideoVerse videos unless they had a BubbleCircle account. They tried to censor many of the comments and videos depending on if they had hate speech, content not owned by the video creator, or criticism of Bubble. They also did away with making money off of videos, causing VideoVerse's stocks to plummet. Bubble could care less; they were already worth somewhere in the quadrillions. At first nearly every member of VideoVerse cried foul, but just as it had been when the layouts changed, many of them gave up and conformed. Some did not.

On January 1, 2014, exactly 9,498 people protested in front Bubble's California headquarters, saying how a corporation with ties to the NSA was taking away people's rights throughout the world wide web. Little did they know that Bubble was using their WIP project, HeliumCircle, for a dark purpose. Close to 8,900 were slaughtered that day, and the rest were given life sentences. This event was known as the New Year's Day Massacre, until Bubble managed to wipe the entire population's memory of this incident.

By May 2014, Bubble was the world. They had managed throughout the 2010s to incorporate itself into everyday life. First it was phones and televisions, but now it had grown far beyond that. All people drove GroundCircles without having to manually drive. All people wore SpectaCircles over their eyes which also worked as cell phones. HeliumCircles floated over the sky, giving everyone Bubble-approved Internet access, but also secretly keeping the peace. While the third product was successful, the previous two were glitchy. Bubble was too powerful to care if the population was slowly decreasing. They were working on incorporating Bubble into foods and beverages.

What about VideoVerse, then renamed VideoCircle? Well, all the videos were deleted to make way for a new way of making online videos. The only thing you could do on VideoCircle was upload one single video. The video would be three minutes of white space under the title "O." You would upload under a username that was an assigned code of numbers. You would be joudged by an administrator who had the power to send BubblePolice to arrest and kill you under suspicion of conspiracy if he doesn't like the white space video or the white space doesn't correspond to the site design, also white space. If you had the nerve to post something different, the split-second your video is done uploading, your SpectaCircles would lobotomize you. No comments. No channels. No pictures. No avatars. Just thousands of videos under the title "O." Everyone accepted without question. They couldn't. Nobody really knows when they took over. Some say it was February 2014. Others say it was November 2013. Bubble will tell you it was September 1998.


June 23, 2014. Bob Collins's severe depression was at its peak. He never showed this in public; instead, he just smiled. Everyone smiled. But at home, he was the unfortunate soul to remember January 1, 2014. He had not been brainwashed by Bubble to forget that day as he was sleeping when the erasing occurred. He had not purchased his mandatory SpectaCircles until the day after the erasing. So he was plagued with remembering the day his family died. His wife was an activist and a heavy critic against Bubble's Orwellian practices. On 1/1/2014, Hanna Collins took her lovely children to the demonstration, where three hours later, they were fatally shot by a laser beam. Bob Collins decided on this fateful June afternoon that life just wasn't worth living anymore.

He decided to make his one VideoCircle video. As he put the white space "fichte.O" into his Sony Vegas timeline, he decided to make the video fade out in the last 1/10 of a second.

Three minutes later, Bob's SpectaCircles emitted a loud, piercing sound. As he fell off his chair, four BubblePolice Officers crashed through his roof, pointing their ArmCircles at him.

"Bob Ludas Collins, you are under arrest for suspicion of conspi-"

Suddenly, the chief was fatally shot in the back. As he fell, Bob saw a tall black man standing in his doorway, .44 caliber clenched in his hands. The BubblePolice tried to fight back, but they were all unsuccessful. The tall man began approaching Bob, after wiping his boots of the blood that poured out of the officer's white Kevlar.

"So you made an improper video," the tall man said. "Good job."

He removed Bob's SpectaCircles, placed them on the ground lightly, and smashed them under his boot. Bob felt a twinge, but after a few seconds, he felt free.

"The name's Hurley," the tall man continued. "I am a man who should have seen it all coming. I am the man who let this happen out of greed. I am a man who must try and right his wrongs. You are the man to help me."

From his coat pocket, Hurley pulled out a strange object; two red buttons connected by a small bronze pipe. "Press the button" was all Hurley said. Together Bob and Hurley pressed the button, and the world went black, a color Bob had not seen in a long time.


"Welcome to the inside of VideoVerse."

As Bob woke up, he noticed that he didn't look the same as before. Instead he looked like a more complex version of a stick figure. He looked and saw three similar figures, one of them Hurley.

"These are my friends, Chen and Karim," Hurley said. "The date is now November 7, 2013."

"The day after Bubble desecrated this site," Karim said.

"With your help, Bob, we want to save the world from what it could become in 2014," Chen said.

The world around him was now an endless hall of floating videos, all looping at the same time. All kinds of videos, short, long, good, bad, original, unoriginal, were here. Many of the ones appearing rapidly had BubbleCircle logos in them, a majority of them containing the word, "rant," in their title.

"Do you have a plan, Mr. Collins?," Hurley interjected.

As a matter of fact, he did.

The plan was simple. On a popular but unrelated video, make a comment. The comment had a picture of Bob's VideoVerse form. Beside the picture was this text: "This is Bob. Copy and paste him all over VideoVerse so he can take over and return the old comment section." Bob remembered something like this happening on Yahoo! Answers, so he wanted to see if it would work on YouTube. Surely enough it worked. People on all kinds of videos were posting the message, along with messages containing army tanks, helicopters, nuclear weapons, and all kinds of firearms. Comments sections all over were taking up the top spots, due to the nonsensical way Bubble programmed the new comments sections.

But people hated Bob. They thought the spam was annoying and pointless. They said that the Bob comments wouldn't do anything to change Bubble's mind. The naysayers were correct. However, the people that actually spammed the Bob comments left and right were the smart ones. Bubble had made people conform, so they hated the Bob comments just as much as Bubble themselves did.

On December 31, 2013, the 164,097 Bob comments disappeared. Bob, Hurley, Chen, and Karim were puzzled. Then a zipper appeared. Out poured BubbleCircle, with soldiers that mainly resembled Bob. They also had army tanks, helicopters, nuclear weapons, and all kinds of firearms. Bob made a run for it, leaving Hurley, Chen, and Karim to be obliterated to the point were you couldn't recognize who they originally were. Eventually Bob got tired of running and kneeled. He began to pray.

"God, I know I'm a cafeteria Catholic. I pick and choose what I want to believe, but I don't want it to end like this. I just don't. So if you can hear me, please find it in your heart to give me a second chance."

The nuclear missile was 6 feet away from Bob's head.

"Amen."


A flash of light, and Bob was back in the real world. Back in his bed, his beautiful wife Hanna at his side. The alarm clock was blaring at 8:00, so Hanna was just waking up.

"Hi, honey," Hanna said drowsily. They kissed. They went downstairs to see their ten-year-old son, Paul, at the kitchen counter, eating a piece of buttered toast. Zoey, their thirteen-year-old daughter, was watching The Today Show. They all said good morning and Bob realized that today was January 1, 2014.

A few hours later, Hanna reminded Bob that today was the big demonstration in front of Bubble. "Bubble's Orwellian oppressiveness is a travesty. I cannot believe Obama would allow them to abuse their power as a member of the 1%, but then again Bubble did give information to NSA, so it's not too hard to believe, I suppose."

"Can we come with you to the demonstration, Mom?," asked Zoey. Second chance.

"I'd prefer if we all stay away from the demonstration," Bob suddenly exclaimed.

"What?" Hanna tried to pretend that she didn't hear Bob's request.

"I mean," Bob stammered, "it's still winter, and according to Al Roker, temperatures today will be at the very best 3 degrees. I don't want you guys to be freezing all day. Sure, you'll wear coats, but...Hanna, can I speak to you in private?"

They went upstairs. Bob explained everything, while Hanna listened. They decided that, for the cause, the children needed to be spared. When the HeliumCircles attacked, they would go out for lunch. Before that, they would throw their signs in the closest river. They would either be able to raise their kids or be on the run for the rest of their lives, while their children still be living a normal life, albeit as orphans.

They called up a babysitter to watch over the kids for the day while they went to protest Bubble's stupidity. Before they left, Bob wanted to say one last thing before he left to his children:

"Kids, there are good people and bad people in this world. No matter what, do what you want to do, not what others tell you to do. They will be people who might want to control you, shape you into something you're not. But I plead you, do what you think is right, not what others think is right. There are exceptions, sure, but I think you two are smart enough to know what's right and wrong. I love you kids, from the bottom of my heart."

And they left. Three hours later, Bob and Hanna Collins were fatally shot from inside a Dairy Queen by two laser beams.

Two hours prior to their parents' death, Paul and Zoey were watching the demonstration from their TV screen. The babysitter came in and changed the channel to Disney Channel.

Zoey said, "Why did you change the channel? Our parents are at that demonstration and we're worried about them."

The babysitter said nothing.

Paul said, "They could be hurt."

The babysitter laughed. Paul and Zoey looked at each other.

"You know," the babysitter told the children, "your parents should have followed my philosophy."

"What's that?," Paul asked.

"Don't be evil."

After saying that, the babysitter lifted up the left side of her shirt. She opened up a latch on her side and pulled out an extension cord. She plugged the extension cord into a nearby outlet. A circle guarded the front of the charger.

"Now kids," the babysitter asked calmly, "what will you be doing in 2014?"

As the piss colored skies give way to darkness, the stars reveal their presence one again. So many bodies of light and warmth are visible, yet the night is black and cold.

Whilst walking past obligatory strung lights and decorations that have, not unlike the season itself, faded and lost their initial grandeur to the subtle brutality of time, I contemplate if those same stars that we look upon with feelings of bewilderment and wonder look down upon us inversely with feelings of disgust and disinterest, or perhaps even sympathy for our minimal duration, and for the comparative insignificance we possess when juxtaposed against the rest of the universe.

Distracted by such thoughts, I take no notice of the uneven cracked pavement upon which I trek, resulting in me losing my footing and falling to the concrete. Upon colliding with the ground, sensation floods to the point of impact, and I am reminded quite uncomfortably of my existence. I compose myself and begin walking once more, inspecting the bruise that serves as a reminder of my clumsiness.

Continuing to survey my minor injury, a thought materializes in my mind. Perhaps the stars look upon us not with disgust, but rather a feeling of admiration or even jealousy for our imperfections, for our ability to feel sensations such as pain or coldness, and possibly even for our short life-spans. After all, what good is immortality and warmth if you cannot share it with any living thing, and are cursed to simply watch as people live out their lives and attempt to find happiness?

As I approach the door to my place of residence, I look back up at those glowing entities of light and warmth one last time, uncertain if I feel envious or sympathetic for them in all their perfection and beauty.

ACCORDING TO MY GOOD FRIEND ITZNQQB, YOUTUBE IS GOING HAYWIRE WITH IT ITS COPYRIGHT CLAIMS, WHILE THEY ARE SLOWLY FINISHING OF GAMER CHANNELS, WE ARE THE NEXT TO GO! HOWEVER, WE CAN STILL SURVIVE THIS! THIS IS NOT THE DEATH OF YOUTUBE POOP!
WE NEED TO CREATE ALT ACCOUNTS ON OTHER WEBSITES, I STRONGLY SUGGEST VIMEO, BUT ANYTHING GOES. I DON'T KNOW WHEN THIS WILL HAPPEN. IT COULD HAPPEN TOMORROW OR IT COULD HAPPEN NEXT YEAR, BUT WE MUST PRESERVE YOUTUBE POOP IN ALL ITS GLORY!

Thank You,
plasticfishtank




http://www.screwattack.com/news/monetary-compensation-networks-coming-under-fire-youtube-policy-change

(yea, this, wooooooooooo)

Hello once again, my precious ChewChew amigos.

I know I said I'd be reviewing "American Football" this week, however, my copy of it has not arrived and I have only listened to it skimmingly so far. So for the integrity of fine journalism, (I am such a pretentious heap) I will be pushing the review until next week.

TO COMPENSATE, I picked up another album by Mike Kinsella (Owen, Cap'n Jazz, American Football, Their / They're / There) to review, since this man has put out many releases in several outlets. This one is a short lived project known as The One Up Downstairs. Together, they recorded only three, measely songs; a beckoning back, in a way, to American Football's self titled EP.

(album art for the digital download)

The band is comprised of two thirds of American Football (Kinsella and Lamos) as well as half of Very Secretary (David and Allen Johnson), prior to either band starting up. The band became a mysterious legend, as before they released anything, they parted ways to start up their respective projects. This was 1997. After the success of American Football, fans inquired through e-mails, message boards, and other means of communication towards the label on the content this band may or may not have produced, questions regarding the members, as well as queries on whether or not the band even existed. Needless to say, almost twelve years after the band broke up, Polyvinyl released the three songs the band recorded together on a self titled 7" vinyl (as supposedly planned) and as a digital download on January 27th, 2009.

So, let's look at the game facts here:
-Indie legends
-Three recorded songs
-Questions about the bands existence

"Looks like we have a wholesome 10/10, right?!!"

I'm feeling a 7/10..... Maybe 7.5...



I personally felt not so enthrolled with the album as I was with others. It is definitely a well recorded album that I can play after a long day, but I can't really see myself putting this down as an all time favorite of mine. It definitely has the jazzy, indie rooted sound that would later be expressed through the members's other projects, but it wasn't quite as mature as those.

I'd like to beckon back to a week earlier when I said how I thought it was a little bit unfair to rate an album regarding it being only three songs, but the thing is American Football went on to release a full length album follwing this. They had more time to build up on what they already established on their EP. The reason this wasn't as mature was because of the factors surrounding it. The members were already working on these projects and did not have time to work on this whole heartedly.

I would probably say my favorite track on this album would be Franco The Bull. It has a very warm feeling to it with clean guitars, a soothing bass and drum line, and a very steady progression, which I must say is perfect for calming down and relaxing. I'm actually planning to use this song in a video on my skit channel.


Champaigne definitely sounds like and conveys a message of being drunk, from it's slow, SLOW tempo and loud, slowly spoken lyrics. It is also very broken down and simplistic, like the band itself is performing at a kegger post-party, where everyone is crashing or passed out and the band is just winding down. It's an interesting track, to say the least.


I personally think the most forgettable track on the album is the only one I haven't mentioned, Rememories. It has a very typical sort of Indie pop sound to it, faster than its predeccesor and its successor. I don't really have much to say about this track, other than that it's a fun listen when you're actually listening to it, but it has nothing really to bring you back.


My best guess is that the band itself rarely was able to get together and that the album is just a mixed huddle of ideas or jams that the band was able to actually pump out. Is it worth the three dollars I spent on it? Absolutely, yes. I would recommend giving it a listen and formulating your own opinion regarding it.

Many people say this is their best and that they could have been a great band. Who knows? Maybe they could have. It's all up to the listener.

Until next week, that's all I have to say. Thanks for reading.

If you would like to purchase this album physically or digitally, visit: http://www.polyvinylrecords.com/artists/index.php?id=406

If you want me to review anything, just comment below and I'll give it a shot

I think I will start by describing some of my favorite things.

My favorite song: "Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me" by Oingo Boingo. Almost all songs describe either a relationship or something sad happening. With some exceptions, there's not a song quite like "Nothing Bad Happens to Me," about a guy who hears about tragic events, but asks the much-needed question: "Why should I care?" In addition to its grim yet hilarious lyrics, the music adds cheerfully to the joyride.

My favorite movie: Ferris Bueller's Day Off. While I know there are many better movies out there, this is the film that left me completely satisfied. It had philosophy, humor, tragedy, redemption, and much more. I even found myself loving it more than John Hughes' magnum opus, The Breakfast Club. Don't ask me why; I just found Bueller to be a much more well-furnished movie.

My favorite TV show: Ouan Highschool Host Club. The minute you start watching one episode, you have to painfully will yourself to stop. The humor in this show makes me have laughing fits every 15 seconds, or at least that's what it feels like. Even when the show isn't funny (I prefer to watch the dub where I can understand the hilarious boxes), you still have to smile at the beautiful visuals and the concept alone.

My favorite book: The Fault in Our Stars by the masterful John Green. Every page of this book oozes hilarity and tragedy. The book starts with hilarity, takes up residence between hilarity and tragedy for the middle part, and ends in tragedy. The book is a masterpiece throughout, and is one of those books you can find yourself coming back to time and time again, where everything is still as hilarious and sad as before.

And finally, my (former) favorite YouTube Poop: "Revenge of the Mad Madman" by Deepercutt. Every single minute is hilarious. The amount of times you watch it does not make it any less funny. It uses the amount of exploitability that Spider-Man 2 has and does not squander a single moment of it. I'd like to see the day when Deepercutt manages to make a Poop that's twice as good as this.

With the exception of my favorite book (just by a hair, though), "Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me," Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ouran Highschool Host Club, and "Revenge of the Mad Madman" do not equal a hundredth of the divinity of "The Extended Weekend of Sparkle." YouTube Poop is an art form, and this 17-minute "YouTube Poop" is proof.

The Review
I never really considered Combuskenisawesome to be all that great. In fact, I think his Frollo poop from back in March was the first thing I saw from him, which I put at #10 on my first Semiweekly Moments. My thoughts about him were that he was a really good sentence mixer who was like a better version of ThemOldaBoys. I enjoyed "West B*tches Treason Sue Episode N(ine)," but I guess I just wanted more out of it. The sentence-mixing was superb, yes, but it just didn't make me subscribe.

I subbed almost immediately after his 199th YouTube Poop finished. If his account somehow gets terminated, I think I'll terminate everyone of my channels in protest. Even if someone were to reupload "The Extended Weekend of Sparkle," it would feel unclean to watch the poop on any other channel.

The "poop" uses its main source, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, in a way reminiscent of TheSleepingSleuth. By this, I mean that Combuskenisawesome chooses to use multiple episodes of her main source to tell a story. There's a difference though. TheSleepingSleuth made more simple stories out of multiple SpongeBob stories, which usually ended up being Spadinner. Combuskenisawesome makes a more complex story of sorts. (SPOILER WARNING)

The best interpretation of the plot I can make is that one day, Twilight receives a short visit from her future self, saying that next Tuesday morning, she will die. This version of Twilight seems to be a more sinister one, but she turns more insane after taking drugs to try and help herself calm down from her depression about tying next Tuesday morning. She proceeds to do the following: terribly hurt Rarity's feelings; have vague dreams about why this is happening; have a flower pot fall on her courtesy of Pinkie Pie getting back at Twilight for humiliating her; send Spike on a brutal mission to find a brand-new quill, only to get one from her put owl (which breaks almost immediately); call her brother "gay" when he cries over her nearing death; get punched in the eye by Luna to the tune of "That's Amore;" try to get the Elements of Harmony to work, only to die just before starting them. As each day passes, Twilight wakes up to Pinkie's loud musicbox, which causes Twilight to do a number of violent acts. I refuse to say the plot twist, because even though I've recapped a lot of information, everyone needs to watch the video to find out the hilarious plot twist. The "poop" ends with everyone celebrating the death of the horrible pony known as Twilight Sparkle. Well, except Spike, who is the only one to really mourn the loss of his friend.

The ending alone is a good enough reason to watch it, as it does something that nobody thought possible: make someone cry at a Youtube Poop. (unless you're Sarevol and the poop was made by SterTube)

That's why I call this video "divine": it manages to make you feel actual emotions other than laughter, confusion, or disgust. It makes you feel emotions like surprise, pride, and most importantly, sadness. I remember how I wanted to make a Michael Rosen poop with a depressing ending a long time ago, but my procrastination led me to do otherwise. So really, "The Extended Weekend of Sparkle" has an ending I've wanted to see a YouTube Poop accomplish for a long time: genuine sadness. Sure, the ending does have some of the biggest laughs of the video, which I've seen YTP endings do as well (a twinge of sadness but mostly hilarity), but this video has an ending with more genuine sadness. I recall MechaWeegee91's "Link and the Hyrule Gang (episode 12, part 2)" to be the last time a Youtube Poop's ending made me feel a genuine emotion other than amusement.

There's not a single complaint I can make about it. I may have minor criticisms, but in the grand scheme of things, my complaints would be heresy. I cannot state enough my complete respect for this masterpiece. The plot is engaging, the sentence mixing, though at few times hard to interpret, is spectacular, the sources are used expertly, and above all, it makes you feel more than you would regularly feel about a YouTube Poop. Every solitary millisecond is worth watching multiple times over.

This is how YouTube Poop can be, and is, art.

ELECTRONIC MUSIC IS MY WAIFU IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TEEEEEELL

I've not been keeping a very close eye on electronic music in general this year. By that, I mean I didn't buy Shaking The Habitual, The Inheritors, Tomorrow's Harvest, Immunity or even Exai (shock horror ). But my eye has been on Bandcamp, mostly. I have been watching, and observing, and keeping track of all the bloopy shit that I liked the most, and I have compiled it here. And just to take that question out of your mind, no, Random Access Memories will not appear on this list, although I did like it a lot. It just wasn't electronic enough for this list; and after all, this list is meant to be nothing but electronic, isn't it? I think it is. The rules I set for myself in my head state so, anyway.
One last thing: I'm not disqualifying any of these for being short. Several of these releases are as short as 20 minutes long. I don't care, though. If they're worthy of being on the list, they're worthy.
I'm rambling. Let's just begin already.



10. Shinsquish - Vaervaf



The vast world of music on Bandcamp is much more vast than you'd think. It almost resembles an ocean: just below the surface you find relatively normal fish, with normal fins and normal bodies - the Minecraft soundtrack, or a Monstercat album, for example - but the further into it you delve, the weirder the fish become. Their bodies more warped, their teeth sharper, their scales dappled with patterns never before seen by human eyes. If you go far down enough, you'll find a particularly bizarre, goblin-like, hook-toothed entity. Those familiar with the Breakbit Trench know this creature by the name Vaervaf.

Shinsquish marks the first Vaervaf album I wholeheartedly like. I'm told Greengums was good, but I couldn't make it past the first track, for reasons I don't remember. But this... I can process this. Speaking of first tracks, Put Me In Your Sig was probably the main reason I decided "Let's see what Shinsquish does for me". Funnily enough, this album as a whole does quite a lot for me. The instrumentals are fine, but at the core, this is personality-driven music. By that, I mean the main reason you're listening is because Vaervaf's persona is so abnormal, so unusual that you kind of follow him, tortured melody after tortured melody, as far down the rabbit hole as possible before you can't keep up.

So for me at least, this is one of those albums where the main attraction is the voice. Vaf's voice is - and this is the best comparison I can manage - somewhere between Thom Yorke and Bjork (Thom Bjorke?). There's a kind of fractured beauty in the melodies he writes that reminds me of those two artists, but you can't help but wonder if Vaf is really that similar to either of them. Vaervaf's vocals are a whole new creature entirely.
This spot was originally reserved for Son Lux's album Lanterns, but I like Shinsquish more. Nibble on that, Son Lux! This is the kind of difficult listen you can only find from the more experimental Breakbit artists. It's not for everyone, but who the fuck even is everyone?! It's here if you're up for a challenge.


Best song: Trick question! Put Me In Your Sig is what got me into this thing. I really like the last 20 seconds of innaprot. BUNK has a nice lurch to it. SPOKEEN is the most conventionally listenable song on the album; give that one a shot if you want to lower yourself in slowly.

9. Desire - Spazzkid

Right! Let's get to something a bit fluffier.
Unlike that other Spazkid, the immature unfunny rule-34 obsessed flash animator who rips directly off of Egorator, Spazzkid is a producer for the label Purrtapes. That's literally all I know about him. I could go and do research on him and his label, but I'd rather talk about his album, and how comfortable and relaxing it is.

It's not just comfortable, though, it's instantly familiar and feels like an old favourite as early as the second listen. The majority of the album consists of pretty, reverb-drenched tracks with just enough sidechain to avoid becoming dull. The way I see it, when you make chilled music, your primary concern is to make it relaxing but still interesting, and Spazzkid has that down to a T on Desire. Kokeshi Doll is like taking LSD and sitting down in the best armchair in the house, only to sink into it and dissolve. Candy Flavoured Lips is like drifting along on an inflatable on the open ocean in the middle of the day. Marquez is like waking up and realising you have the ability to fart rainbows all over the place. Writing about this album is fun. It's an album full of dreamy, deep dubby garage songs, which is reason enough to give it a try. Just sitting down, listening to it to get material to write about it is a very pleasurable experience in itself.

It would have ranked a little higher if it wasn't for Spazzkid's vocals on tracks like Getting To Know You. The vocals fit the feel of the music, but they're a little too limp to command any real presence. His lyrics are also a bit too underdeveloped to really mean much. Candy Flavoured Lips doesn't suffer from that problem. Skymarines' vocals are smooth, dreamy and technically proficient enough to dominate the track. The lyrics paint a much better picture, too (not that I could even hear many of them, what with the lovely reverb the track is drenched in).

Unfortunately this album cannot be downloaded from Bandcamp, as someone at PurrTapes thought it'd be a fantastic idea to only release the album on a limited supply of cassette tapes, which has since sold out. You can still stream it on Bandcamp here, though, and you can find it if you search for it on Filestube.

EDIT: Now I feel like an idiot. Turns out you can download it for 50 cents over here. Dunno how I missed that.

Best song: Candy Flavoured Lips

8. Blank Banshee - Blank Banshee 1



I haven't been keeping up with vaporwave. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I would be fast enough to keep up with its rapid evolution and constant mutations. This album, for example, marks the moment where vaporwave strapped an 808 to its chest and did its best dubstep impression. Plot twist: it totally works.
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Blank Banshee is an anonymous vaporwave producer (or so he claims - I'm not knowledgeable enough in vaporwave to confirm whether or not the term applies to him). He is one of the only vaporwave-esque producers an uninitiated sucker like me has heard of; the only bigger name that comes to mind is Vektroid.
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He's hit it big with the 90s computer sound, as he's clearly a natural at this sort of thing. Just about every track on here is elegantly composed and enticingly fluid, which Banshee maintains for the whole thing; the benchmark doesn't drop for a second. A lot of the tracks are very similar-sounding, but that only makes it more interesting when a track like Metal Rain flies around the corner and collides with you. It's probably my favourite track on here. That bass just hits you like a bloody wall. Another favourite? Gotta be Eco Zones, which samples Donkey Kong Country's Aquatic Ambience and decorates it with some lovely warped female vocal samples. And Paradise Disc /芸能山城組 is just what it sounds like. If I had to choose a highlight, it's that track.
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But yeah, like I said, I'm having a hard time keeping track of vaporwave. Blank Banshee 1, though, is something I can understand just fine. It speaks of a time when 3D technology was borderline atrocious, yet was put up with because it was the new thing and we just had to have faith in it. The computer technology of the time must have seemed pretty cutting-edge, but time has rendered it tacky and archaic. Yet there was a certain elegance to the design of ancient operating systems and start-up jingles that Blank Banshee taps into perfectly on this thing. It makes for an unusually inspired collection of tracks. Get your obsolete on here and check out the corresponding music videos here. Keep posted! He has only released 5 vids out of 6. We have yet to see what he's about to come out with.

Best song: Paradise Disc /芸能山城組

7. Imperfection - Zelmershead



Oh God, Zelmershead. There's an act I should've put on my "Favourite Breakbit Albums" list. Truth be told, it was only this year that I managed to get over my fear of Zelmershead enough to properly appreciate the smoky, smoky beauty of their music. If you've heard it before, you're probably nodding your head. If not, you have no idea what you're in for.
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Zelmershead, for those who need an introduction, are a Ukrainian group made up of producer Anton Pokrovsky and vocalist Lin Helly. They make misty, chilling trip hop music that's more true to the dark vibes of Massive Attack than any other group under the "trip-hop" tag.
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Their music has never been more ominous as it is on Imperfection. Anton Pokrovsky is a bloody master producer, and he shapes these gorgeous wisps of songs into monstrous, brooding storm clouds. Lin Helly matches him track-for-track with her dusty, breathy vocals. I feel like I should be naming specific tracks, but every track is top notch. If Imperfection had a flaw, it would be how same-y it is. All of the tracks shoot for the same atmosphere, but they're all so wonderfully well crafted and gorgeous I can't complain for a second.

As for the lyrics? Ehhhh. I want to like them, I really do, but they're unfocused and disconnected and it's hard to really understand what Lin's on about. Her English is also a little shaky, which detracts from the lyrics too. The real strength is how they're performed. Lin's delivery is chilling and subtle, which perfectly compliments the mood of the production. It's hard to argue with music this potent. Imperfection is phenomenal. And as for my slight fear of Zelmershead? I probably won't be shaking it for a while. Develop a new phobia here.

Best song: I guess Fragile, but shit, they're all so good I can barely choose
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6. HyperMedia ~P☯P~ - 회사AUTO


There's a lot to say about this album. The cover pretty much sums it up.

You won't really be seeing me talk about Vaporwave on this blog entry, or this blog in general, mostly because I don't quite see the appeal behind it, and I don't know enough about it to be able to properly describe any of the Vaporwave ideals or themes here. Maybe I'll get into it in the future, maybe I'll suddenly realise what it's all about overnight, but for the time being, just give me this album. It's all I need from the Vaporwave camp. In fact, fuck Pale Machine, this is an album that may well change your world, or at least your musical perspective.

It's only now I come to write about HyperMedia ~P☯P~ that I'm drawing a big fat blank. This is an extraordinarily hard album to describe. It samples heavily from various forms of 90s synth music, but it's hard to tell where the samples end and 회사AUTO's original synth playing begins. It's hard to say whether or not the whole album is nothing but samples. It's not hard at all to notice how good it sounds, though. Anyone with ears can enjoy this on some level, and I have full confidence in that statement because this is good music in the purest sense of the term. All I can really do is share with you some of my favourite track titles from this album, they'll take you on a ride:

ι αм υ
Glass Ocean ||LOST BOYs||
[[[[[[Futurismo]]]]]]
[Space Child] MR FAO Schwarz
Passion Fantasy 5 (feat. Topaz Gang)
Diamond Ecstasy (feat. ショッピングワールドjp)
X The Sky [CTRL ALT DEL]
☒METALEVEL☒
ωε Я чs

Beautiful.

You can stream HyperMedia ~P☯P~ here and download all 1.1 hours of it here.

Best song: Either Drive Thru 4AM or the oddly fun pulse of [[[[[[Futurismo]]]]]]

5. Pale Machine - Bo En

Originally, Lost Decade by Tofubeats was going to be on this list. Not any more. I soon realised it was waaaay too screechy and cheap-sounding for it to make the cut, although I'd still give it a begrudging recommendation by virtue of pure catchiness. Pale Machine, however, is much sleeker and better produced, so that's what's ending up here.



I discovered this one from a Saint Pepsi tweet. "You guys NEED this new bo en album. It'll change your world, or at least make you a better person" is what he said. I don't know about thaaaaat, but he's not far off. It's really, really good. It's what happens if you made some J-Pop, but instead of making it as energetic as possible, aimed for making as good an atmosphere as possible. That's what this is. It's music with as much soul as it has energy. It's a little too good for its own good; all I can really do is gush over it, because it has very few actual problems.

That said, the most obvious problem is that the lyrics are very cliched, underdeveloped in some cases, or just don't hold up to the fantastic production. Very few of those lyrics are offensive per say, but when they are... well, take this here:

"I just woke up today
eat my corny flakes for you"

That's just fucking goofy. Corny flakes, indeed.
That said, the track those lyrics appear in is actually my favourite track on the album, in terms of lyrics. It's very optimistic and bubbly at first:

"判で押したように
just a perfect life
まんまるまんまる
pleasure in every move we make
判で押したように
perfect every time
まんまるまんまる
毎回"

And it carries on in much the same mood, until a small middle-8 section, in which our narrator appears to have a small nervous breakdown:

"hold me, I'm a pale machine
life is just OK out here
anyone can see
I'm lonely, with my pale machine
eyes will run with tired tears
living like a dreaaaaaam"

And on the word "dream", the narrative (and music) switches back to this bouncy, happy mood. The contrast between these two very different sentiments is absolutely the best moment on here lyrically. As for the best musical moment on here, all of it is intensely good, but my favourite track is Winter Valentine. Every track on here has one or more "drops", and the drop in Winter Valentine is the dreamiest, most cathartic drop on the whole thing. It just carries this intense bittersweet feeling. It's very potent.
Ok, so other than a few naive-sounding lyrics, this is to all intents and purposes a spellbinding album. If you want to have some fun with Maltine Records' weird website design, you can stream and download it for free here, but if you want to donate some cash-cash-money to Bo En you can find it here.

Best song: Winter Valentine
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4. Alchemy - Willow Beats



This was one of those albums that I just happened to find by browsing Bandcamp tags and seeing what was popular that that point in time. I'm grateful I managed to find it. I loved it immediately; I linked it to a friend of mine, and he loved it immediately too. Alchemy is from the minds of Australian producer Narayana Johnson and singer Kalyani Mumtaz, and sounds like nothing else I've heard all year. It's a unique body of work that balances creativity and catchiness in near-perfect equilibrium.

When I first listened to it, the song Blue tricked me into thinking this is a chillout album. I was sooo wrong; it's more of a 808-filled, intricately produced, medieval-lore-inspired experience. It still functions much better at being relaxing than most chillout albums, though. I guess the problem I have with the more mellow forms of electronic music is that they suffer from being too polished, and as a result become bland. This album is not really like that. It's jagged, stilted and has an actual pulse (unlike drone music. Ha!) The whole aesthetic is fascinating; the album takes inspiration from Tolkien-esque fantasy, which is something you rarely see in electronic music. And of course, Kalyani Mumtaz's vocals are gorgeous, and really lend themselves to this kind of music.
Things get especially interesting on Incantation. The lyrics on that track are daaaaark. It's a very immaculately constructed description of a ceremony that the protagonist must perform to rid her past of sins. There's nothing too weird about that, but the details about the moon cocooning a "fragile fetus in her swollen cave" and Mumtaz's tense vocal delivery that really bring this track to life. At no point does the character in the lyrics divulge what her sins were, which adds a tangible sense of mystery. It's probably the most sinister track on here - the majority of the songs, Blue in particular, are relatively peaceful and idyllic.

Also, and I absolutely have to gush about this, I really, really dig Johnson's production on this thing. He intricately carves out grooves with his trusty 808 and variety of bubbling sound effects. The melodies are delicate, full of detail and, most importantly, extremely lush. They make the ideal musical background for Mumtaz's lyrics to pirouette upon. One of the most complex releases of the year. Grab this mystic fucker here.
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Best song: Elemental
3. Rewards - Graham Kartna



Mmmm, this album. Remember in a previous blog entry when I predicted that this would be the best album to be released this year? Well, that didn't turn out to be true. There were two albums this year that I enjoyed more than Rewards, and we'll get to those in due time.
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That's not to diminish this album, though. Rewards sounds as good as it did in May. I think the reason I liked it so much is because of what it represented. It represented Graham Kartna taking his own style and basically turning it on its head. This album's bouncy fun comes from the same place as Children's Music For Big Kids did, but is darker in tone, tighter, and more bizarre. I've already reviewed this album, but I overlooked how chaotic LSTIC.Pal was, with its freeform pitch-bends and messy turntable scratches. Aside from that, I still feel the same way about the other tracks. JPN.HauntedHouse is demented and bouncy. MOONY.MyPrayer is entrancing and glorious. LOC.MapNowhere is still a highlight.
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As I'm sitting here relistening to this album, I'm realising that this is very true to form for Kartna. Where the album succeeds is that it takes the childlike joy of Children's Music and turns it up to 11, adding in a healthy dose of eccentricity for good measure. Where Children's Music was gleeful, Rewards is ecstatic. Where Children's Music was danceable, Rewards is maddeningly so. Where Children's Music was innocent, Rewards is actually rather depraved. Just listen to LOC.MapNowhere to see what I mean. Get your eternal reward here.
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Best song: LOC.MapNowhere i was wrong all along JPN.HauntedHouse is the best song on this thing
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2. Points Of Interest - Glue70


Goodness motherfucking gracious, this album was exactly what I needed.
So Glue70 has left his "minimalist glitch" sound on the shelf for a while, so he can pursue his dream of making the most catchy house music imaginable. It's a worthwhile endeavour, and while he established his new style last year with Worldwide Digitising, he managed to perfect it just in time for the summer of '13, with the modestly titled Points Of Interest.
When I say "perfected", I mean it. Songs like Casin and These Street Walkers hit you in a very sentimental way, aiming primarily for the euphoria glands but additionally for the feet. These songs are incredibly dancable. Casin in particular is a highlight, thanks to Glue's talent for finding good vocal samples and placing all the bleeps and bloops in the right places.
Ah, but to wax lyrical about the happier songs on Points Of Interest would be doing a disservice to its darker songs, wouldn't it? Points Of Interest is an album of mood swings. You'll be enjoying some of the chillingest use of hip-hop drumloops imaginable (Step Into The Sunshine), and directly afterwards comes At Kins, a disturbing piece of ambient paranoia that's Bitcrushed into oblivion. It almost shouldn't work, but both songs are too good for you to get mad at either of them. But if you want to hear this album's darker songs at their best, you have to check out Quiet Mary Talking and Domestic Silence, two tight, moody tracks from the deepest depths of Glue70's mind.
Any album this well-produced and well-executed is a joy to listen to. Total essential. I highly recommend checking it out on Glue70's Bandcamp page.

Best song: Casin

MOST HONOURABLE MENTIONZ

An Obsession With Kit - Graham Kartna

T'was a nice piece of work in its own right, what with the pop sensibilities and the lovely way the chords and melodies fit perfectly without needing to be forced. But if it were either this or Rewards, it's just no contest.

Bye-Product - GIF

This one felt like a younger cousin of Hypermedia Pop. I liked it at first, but too much of it was too ugly and harsh to make it onto the list. I'd be doing it a disservice to not mention the tracks I liked, though, namely Turtle, Rememberrr, Esta, My Heart and EEE.

Sherlock House - Overground

Man, trap is just not my thing. This EP was a pretty interesting take on the style, but overall not quite breathtaking enough for a mention.

Kansas City 7Up - Unsatisfied

If this was a guitar-based music list, this album would have placed pretty high, somewhere like #3 or #2. This is not that list, so it's on the honourable mentions. If you like the kind of psychedelia that only the past seems to be able to offer, you have no excuse not to check this out. Especially Old Ways - that track is lovely.

Hirotaka Shirotsubaki - April

I took a cheap shot at drone music when writing the #4 entry, so this is the part where I drop a quick disclaimer: I don't have that much of a problem with drone music. Some of it is rather good. This EP is a good example of such. It's a little too basic to make the actual list, but over the year it's served as really good music to sleep or do homework to. It's been a good friend to me, it's just not something I could really write about. Check it out all the same.

Disclosure - Settle

This was going to be the only non-independant album on the list, but then I realised it was actually kinda boring. Oh well. White Noise, You And Me and When A Fire Starts To Burn are all quality, though.

1. I CREATED PISSCORE - PISS SPEARS



This is going to seem like the dumbest choice.

PISS SPEARS is Paige Stanley, or hrmnzr, or adrmnzr, or one half of Stab Something. She's a pretty active musician under those names, but PISS SPEARS was the pseudonym I found first. What I found was indescribable. Skrillex careens round a bend and collides into Hatsune Miku, who ricochets off and spears MC Ride, who crashes into LMFAO, who combust and explode as Nicki Minaj speedtwerks her way through the resulting inferno. The air reeks of over-compression. The sound of multiple Amen Breaks is deafening.

Basically Stanley has created (spawned?) a time capsule of the internet's trashier side. Obnoxious pop hits, equally obnoxious vocaloid spammage, goofy Soundcloud files from Radock and friends, NWA and Death Grips acapellas, it's all here. And the weirdest part is that it's pretty entertaining to listen to! If you can get over the fact that this album was painstakingly produced to be crushingly, ear-shittingly bad, the absurdity of it all gets to you. It's honestly pretty hilarious: a well timed JASON DERULOOO sample at the end of the fun alternative to chewing gum that's been hiding under your noses for all these years gets me every time. I know it probably means I'm a pleb with no taste in funnies, but that doesn't stop me.

The really startling thing is that, every once in a while, a song will appear that's actually pretty listenable, like death_grips_is_my_favourite_trap_artist.wav and the long awaited collaboration between skrillex and vektroid (vaporwave like you've never heard it b4), the former making for surprisingly good workout music and the latter combining two genres that really should never have laid eyes on one another. But the real apex (almost typed Aphex there, whoops) of this thing is in the track a witty title for this piss spears song that involves astro kid singing zedd and also skrillex. It pretty much does what it says on the tin. It's only when the drop swings around that you get blasted at full force by piercing, deadly spears of white-hot piss. It absolutely will destroy your ears if you put the volume up too high, so be warned. It's an endurance test, but it will feel exhilarating if you manage to survive it. Your reward? More pisscore.

It's easily the dumbest album the internet has seen for years. No question about that. But everything about it is a joy to witness, from the amazing track titles (FALL INTO BILL NYE) to the sound of MC Ride rapping over J-pop (TAKYARY [DEATH PON]), to sitting back and watching this thing's ascent on Bandcamp's dubstep tag (it got to like #10 for a while). It is both the best thing and yet the worst thing: if intentionally bad music is still bad, this should not exist. But it does exist, so I may as well enjoy it.

I almost don't know what to make of this. It's not a parody, it's barely satire, it's... just pisscore. I just listened to the whole thing to determine whether or not I really like this thing that much, and... yep. I do. Sorry. It is most certainly my favourite electronic album of 2013. Take a laxative and shit yourself all over your favourite couch here.
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Best song: a witty title for this piss spears song that involves astro kid singing zedd and also skrillex

Hello again YouChew friends.

After long last, I finally reviewed this beaut'. American Football.

If you didn't read my last review of their work, here is a little insight on who these guys are.



American Football was a brief alternative/emo/math-rock band, consisting of the majestic trio of indie-legend, Mike Kinsella (of Owen fame), Steve Lamos, and Steve Holmes. This band was almost exclusively a side project, with all three members involved in different projects for Polyvinyl, before merging to form this group. The band recorded this album in late 1997-early 1998 before recording their full-length, self titled LP, American Football, which I will be reviewing next week. The band was praised almost universally for their The group performed a few live shows locally split a year after the second album's release after becoming nothing more than a studio project.

I have been waiting a while to review this, and finally got a physical copy in the mail. So, without further ado, let's dive in.

The first track on the album is Never Meant, which truly launches the listener into the melancholic state that the band is trying to convey. Despite its upbeat, jazzy instrumentation, the lyrics depict a couple's breaking up, throwing lines out such as "Let's just pretend everything between you and me was never meant", self explanitory to the songs title. Near the middle we get a pretty nice breakdown/build up with some talkbox esque vocals that seem to compliment each other and clash quite nicely. Not to mention the words that are spoken that are beckoned by loyal fans:


Following this is a much slower, sadder sounding ballad, The Summer Ends. The vocals come in after about a minute of a surprising horn segment, which kind of felt forced in my opinion, but none the less sounded nice. The song sort of sounds like something you'd listen to on a sunday evening in the beginning of fall, which is what I believe is where the song takes place, as Kinsella is talking about confusion regarding where his relationship with this unnamed partner he is courting. This song is actually how I found this band, after vaporwave artist/friend of mine Saint Pepsi sampled this track in his single Unhappy. (fitting)

Next comes the track Honestly?. A bit of a tempo pick up from The Summer Ends, but it fits. This song has about a minute or two of vocals before going into a grandiose instrumental that at this point I slipped my socks off and laid my head back in my desk chair. Complete nirvana. If there is one thing I'd like to say about Mike Kinsella, is that he is a musical genius. It leaves you a bit tired though, as it goes on for about four minutes, but I didn't really mind. However, I can see people getting tired of the repetetive sound the track has.

Following this, we get another slow track, For Sure. We are greeted again by horns alongside some a slow, extremely jazz reminiscent instrumental. I got goosebumps on this track the second the angelic sounding vocals came in. I'm not calling it angelic due to my soft spot for Kinsella's work, but the way they reverb and are sung sound like it would be the calling from an actual angel. I will no longer be repeating what I said on the others, since I am going to say that every track on here has to do with a struggeling romance.

From this we get You Know I Should Be Leaving Soon. Here we are greeted by what may be the first obvious sign of influence from math-rock, as the song's structure is arranged in a rather unordinary way, breaking away from the usual time signature of other songs. This track is an instrumental track, so it becomes more apparent to pay attention to the song itself. It's relaxing, and is definitely a nice in between track.

Next up is But the Regrets Are Killing Me. This is probably the saddest sounding song so far from my listening. (I am listening straight through and taking notes.) At this moment, I stare at my lamp in my dimly lit room. I begin to regret some mistakes in my own love life. [name withheld], if you're reading this, I've always loved you, and I'm telling you tomorrow. But that's besides the point. The song is definitely the most reminiscent of emo music, as the chorus repeats on and on "but the reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeets, are killing meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

DRUMS DRUM DRUM DRUM right into the faster I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional. We get a little more upbeat, but still sad, sounding fast, precise time signatures. Kinsella's delivery is definitely at its most emotional, sounding almost as if he's begging desperately. This has probably been the highlight of the album.

From this we get Stay Home. This seems to be the point of euphoric confusion and otherwise aimless angst, like a reality check for the listener. This is what I believe to be the Five Silent Miles of this album. Like, this is the walking down the road after fighting with your love and literally regretting every breath of it and just want nothing more but to be forgiven, something this album is REALLY good at doing.

(For the record, I teared up at this record a bit, and it has become probably one of my favorite albums ever.)

And at the conclusion at this record, we get The One With the Wurlitzer, an instrumental track. We are greeted with the horns. I feel if there was ever a movie adaption of this album, this would be the music that would play as the credits rolled, zooming out from the ominously lit window on the album, with the victim of heartbreak portrayed throughout the album resides, contemplating what he has done.



And with that, we have American Football. Wow.
This was powerful, like really powerful.

The production was very very clean and well done, as well as the instrumentals, with the exception of the horns at time feeling very forced, but that might just be me.

I can see now why this group has such a large and loyal fanbase, because I too would love to hear anything from them again.

If you are to listen to this, please listen to this in full; start to finish. It's an experience.

I'm going to give this a 9.5/10, only because of the horns. Ugh..... Horns....

I've had discussions on this site before about how I like the transformers movie trilogy despite their poor reception. I just finished my yearly rewatching of Transformers 1 and 2 which has led me to speak my mind about why I think Transformers 2 deserves more than the scathing reception it has received from critics and the internet at large. Transformers 2 is by no means perfect but I think the positives outweigh its faults.
One common criticism of TF2 is that people say the movie has some distasteful racial humor. I fully agree that having robots with gold teeth speaking gangsta slang who say they dont know how to read is incredibly distasteful and thats the first thing I would have changed if I was in charge of production. However, it's plausible that those characters would exist as the transformers learned to speak from observing the internet and there are people who speak like that on the internet. Of course they should not have been in the movie to being with. But if this was just a human action movie and there were gangsta characters I don't know if people would be as offended by the characters. It's also worth noting that there are plenty of other black characters in the TF trilogy that don't fit the gangsta stereotype. Tyrese plays a total badass military dude in all three movies. He's smart, competent, likeable and funny without relying on bad racial stereotypes. Not to mention in Transformers 1 Anthony Anderson played a genius computer hacker nerd who was one of the better parts of the movie. Also, Jazz was black even in the old cartoon show of transformers and he also appeared in Transformers 1 as a cool dude. The point is yes those twin gangsta transformers are racist and terrible but at least there were other black characters who weren't like that. Fortunately, the gangsta twin transformers dont have too much screen time and if I remember correctly they arent in TF3.

Another big problem with the Transformers movies is that they are exhausting to watch in one sitting because they are poorly paced and packed to the brim with visual effects, loud sound effects and explosions. Personally, I dont like to watch movies over 2 hours in one sitting. I love the lord of the rings films but they are just as exhausting to watch all at once. Now that the transformers movies are on dvd/blu-ray I really enjoy watching just part of them and then taking a break and watching the rest later. Does that inherently make transformers 2 a bad movie because its more entertaining when consumed in pieces rather than as a whole? I don't think so but of course people will disagree with me on that. But when I watch TF2 I really love getting sucked into the detail of the transformers. They are beautifully rendered and watching them transform is just a work of art. The sound design in these movies is incredible. The sounds of clashing metal as they transform is just breathtaking at times. I think the lesson TF2 can teach us is that not all movies are meant to be experienced in the same way. 2001 A Space Odyssey is one of the best movies of all time and I can barely ever watch it in one sitting because there is so much to digest and think about whereas Grandmas Boy is a great comedy that I can turn my brain off and watch all at once no problem.

I think its strange that people complain about the overuse of special effects in these movies as the special effects are top notch and there isn't a lot of noticeable green screen like in the star wars prequels. In fact, TF2 shot on location in Egypt and a few other places.

The transformers have always been about style and commercialism over substance. But The Transformers movies didn't bastardize the franchise in fact they embraced it. The cartoon show was practically a weekly half hour commercial to sell toys. But who cares because that cartoon show and those toys are badass because they are about alien fighting robots that transform into cars and jets and shit. Thats just badass I'm not sorry. There is nothing wrong with some movies and entertainment being style over substance. Not everything has to be philosophical or cerebral to be enjoyable. Sometimes it feels great to shut my brain off and watch giant robots fight with explosions, hot chicks and cool cars everywhere. Plus there were a few jokes that were actually funny among the bad ones and a few moments were genuinely touching. For example, at the start of TF2 Sam is going to college and his parents have to let him go live his life. Later in the movie he meets up with his parents and this theme of 'coming of age' is repeated as Sams parents have to let him fight his own battle with the transformers even though they know its dangerous. It's a cheesy movie but there were still a few touching shots of sams father struggling to let his son go just as he had to do once before at the beginning of the movie.

Also, TF2 is a big improvement from TF1. The biggest problems I had with TF1 were that the action scenes were too shaky, there wasnt enough robot on robot grappling and there was way too much human drama with very little transformers in the movie. TF2 is a lot more balanced between the human drama and the transformers stuff and the action is shot much more competently and is more satisfying. Megan Fox is hotter in TF2 and her performance really was better than I remember it being. Whatever her problems in real life and in the media she can act and is beautiful on screen.

Plus it was great that TF2 wasnt just a repeat of TF1 as so many sequels fall into that trap. Not to mention, there was far less pandering in TF2. In TF1 we had to see a lot more products center screen, a lot more kids and people of different age groups in the frame for no reason other than to try to reach as wide of an audience as possible ect. TF2 is much more brutal with its portrayal of the action and it gets away with it because its robot on robot violence. It was a good sequel in that it built off the original but newcomers could jump into TF2 and still have a good understanding of whats going on. Like most good blockbuster sequels it took everything good about the first movie and pushed it to the Nth degree. It's also worth noting that TF2 was a huge financial success.

I like Michael Bay because he's not afraid to do things his way and to say 'if you don't like it then fuck off because I'm michael bay and this is what I wanted to make.' I think these movies are artistic expression even if they greatly overlap with commercialism. Art and commercialism have become less and less separated overtime and while there may be problems inherent to that it's the reality of our society and I've learned to embrace it to some extent. Big movies like this are a business and the success of big blockbusters like this allow studios to use their huge profits to fund smaller more independent movies that take bigger risks and appeal to a much more narrow audience. But again, TF2 didnt feel like it was aiming at as wide of an audience as the first movie, at least it didnt appear to be trying nearly as hard. I also like that there were several subtle moments where the integrity of the US government and military were brought into question. Some people claim these movies are commercials for the military but I think if transformers were on earth fighting each other the military and governments of the world would get involved and would be central to the conflict. Plus there were lots of badass military scenes so whatever.

So yes, these movies aren't perfect and I can understand why people hate or dislike Transformers 2. The racist tranformer twins were really offputting as were a few of the bad jokes throughout the movie and the script is a tad messy as is the pacing. But these are spectacle movies about alient giant tranforming robots fighting that are based on a commercialized cartoon from the 80s so I dont expect too much realism or a highly serious tone. TF2 delivers wonderful action shots, special effects and a few good moments with some rough patches along the way. To me, that is entertainment no matter what criticisms others may have. Nothing appeals to everyone but perhaps despite the hate for TF2 there is also more than meets the eye.

Day 2: Typhoon Tour of Tokyo (Morning Tour)

NOTE: Because of a seventy-picture limit for each post, I will have to split each day into two entries, beginning with this one. The next half will be re-uploaded on the fifth of next month, and each entry thereafter will follow this pattern. Moushiwake arimasen!

Alongside the earthquake of the previous night was a howling typhoon, which ripped past the side of my hotel window while I was asleep. The next day began in the tail end of this typhoon, with a heavy rainfall and misty atmosphere covering the city. It gave the city a unique ambiance, but also created inconvenience, as you will see later in this entry.

I woke up early in the morning, with two hours to spare before my tour bus leaves its destination. I used this time to look for a quick breakfast, which I settled for a meatloaf meal with eggs, rice, and veggies from 7-11. During this time, I remembered reading up on the convenience stores of Japan, and how they offer complete, pre-packaged meals at a low price; this knowledge helped me save time and money for food.

However, the problem at the moment was not finding food, but finding a place to sit! Because it was raining, there was no place to sit outside. I had difficulty finding a place to eat within the hotel I was to meet my tour guide (different from the one I was staying in), as the tables in the lobbies were branded with messages stating that they were not to be used for eating. Eating while walking was out of the question: this is considered impolite in Japanese etiquette.

During my search, I came across my first Shinto shrine: the Takayama Shinto Shrine. Later, I discovered that this shrine was built in front of where the shoreline of Tokyo Bay used to be, and that it served to bless its ships and seafarers with safe travels. At the time, I did not know what purpose this shrine served; combined with the gloomy rainfall, the building gave off an ominous aura that left a lasting impression on me during my stay in Shinagawa.

With the exception of coming across the Takayama Shrine, this hour was completely stressful: not only was I unable to sit and eat anywhere, but I also had to find my tour guide! I knew when and where to meet my guide, but not what to identify him/her with. I asked around in the main lobby of the hotel if they knew about/were associated with my tour; I was met mostly with confusion, even from the receptionists. As I saw a tour leave the lobby, I panicked, wondering whether or not that was my group. Eventually, I did find my tour guide and signed myself into the group with no trouble; it turns out that I was the only person from this stop going on the tour.

On the bus, I solved my food problem when I asked the bus driver and assistant if I could eat. While there was some issue with the language barrier, they eventually understood what I was asking about when the driver lifted his fingers in the shape of chopsticks. This was when I discovered the importance of physical language when traveling overseas: if the language barrier is too thick, communicate with your hands.

It took an hour for the bus to pick up passengers from all the hotels before the tour actually began. Winding through the streets of Tokyo, I felt disoriented by the city's sprawling road system: even with my filmographic memory, I could not easily trace steps or set landmarks as I could anywhere else. Learning the city's train system (which is the best of its kind) made navigation a lot less daunting, but the streets are only manageable when one sticks to a single area. Below was one of the buildings I saw on this route... somewhere.

The first stop of the tour was Tokyo Tower, a good place to get a panoramic view of the city before the tour explores it in detail. Because Halloween was near, the tower was decked in Halloween paraphernalia. It was adorable.

The rain here was especially a mixed blessing: it gave Tokyo a characteristic noir atmosphere, but also limited our visibility. Landmarks that were further off in the horizon – like Tokyo Disneyland or Mt Fuji – were completely obscured by fog, with only the signs to point towards where they would be. Still, the sights we did see were lovely in this weather, including a cemetery...

… the supports of Tokyo Tower...

… the Rainbow Bridge...

… Zōjō-ji...

… Azabu-Jūban...

… Azabudai...

… and this VIP hotel.

After taking in this sight, the tour descended down to the tower's second floor and roamed in the souvenir shops before continuing. While I knew when we were supposed to meet at the exit, I did not know that it was in a different part of the building from the entrance! I waited in the front lobby until the meetup time, and knew something was off when that time came. I scurried back up to the second floor, where I discovered the actual exit and ran to my bus. I gave my apologies to the tour guide and continued to Meiji Shrine.

One thing I loved about Tokyo was the amount of greenery within it. Between its many historical sites, religious sanctuaries, parks, and gardens, there are many places where one can escape to an atmosphere of tranquility, either to enjoy the skyline from a different perspective or flee the city altogether. Meiji Shrine is but one example: cloaked in its own personal forest, it is blocked off from both the noise of the surrounding city and the light of the sun.

Here are sake barrels donated from across Japan...

… and wine barrels from around the world.

The magnificent torii standing in front of the path to the shrine:

This was my first experience with the purification fountains found at the front of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. The purpose of these fountains are to cleanse the body and soul: to go about this, one would take a ladle, wash one's hands, rinse out one's mouth using a free hand, then rinse the handle of the ladle. However, I was not properly introduced to these fountains until later tours: here, I observed how the other tourists used them, which I came to the conclusion of, “take a ladle, pour water onto one's hand, then drink the water so it cleanses one's entire system.” It is the thought that counts.

I was overtaken by awe as I entered the shrine itself.

The courtyard opposite of the entrance was a no-photograph area, as taking pictures of certain sacred people or spaces is irreverent. Within this courtyard was a bare stone slab... where over 800 deities are congregating at a single time. Between the courtyard and the visitors was a series of long donation boxes, where I learned how to make a donation: bow twice, throw a coin into the box, clap one's hands, and bow once more. Behind the courtyard was a large taiko and the occasional monk.

Our tour was lucky, as we managed to see a Shinto wedding in process. Here, we saw the black-clad groom and the big-horned wife, being guided by a priest and two maidens to the altar. Unfortunately, I did not take a good picture of the bride and groom, but the people in the below photo are the guests following the couple. Our tour guide told us about the costs of holding a Shinto-style wedding, with one expense being a $300 entry fee for each guest!

By now, the rain has stopped, and the weather is now overcast. Our next stop was Akasaka Palace, a guest house for VIPs such as international political figures. Like how Tokyo Tower was modeled after the Eiffel Towel, Akasaka Palace was modeled after Buckingham Palace.

Because the bus only stayed briefly before continuing, there is not much to say about my experience here. Instead, I will tell you about something amusing that happened on the way there: our tour guide asked what the national sport of Japan was; the correct answer was “sumo wrestling,” but the first sport that came to mind was “baseball.” With its popularity in Japan, it was easy to come to that conclusion.

Our next destination was the city's actual equivalent to Buckingham Palace: the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor and his family are housed. Because the palace was under heavy security, the only area visitors were allowed was its historical section: the East Garden, which has plenty of beauty and marvel in its own right.

Upon crossing the moat, we came across the gates of the garden. What amazed me about the Japanese fortresses I have seen were their combination of sturdy construction and labyrinthine design, for the maximum security. In this case, the area in between the two gates served as a buffer for invaders: As the gates are the only weak point of the palace's defenses, two of them are installed to slow invaders' progression. Furthermore, the second gate is placed perpendicularly to the first gate; this forces armies to turn as they enter the palace, not only further slowing their advancement but also leaving their left side spaced out and vulnerable. With walls as impenetrable as the ones bordering the surrounding moat, this small space was critical to the vitality of the entire stronghold.

Beyond this space, we walked on a gravel road, passing by the royal guards' training dojo (not pictured), along with two guardhouses, the second of which housed 100 guards!

Eventually, we reached a stagnant moat and a large, stone wall: these are the remains of the castle during the Edo period.

And then we approached the Ninomaru Garden.

A motif of this garden – as well as other Japanese gardens, is one of longevity. One of the icons representing this are the black pine trees, which can last beyond any human and takes centuries to even train.

Another icon of longevity are the koi. While unassuming beyond their beautiful colors, these fish last a surprisingly long time, which according to my tour guide was around seventy years! I found a new respect for these fish after learning this, and made me all the more fascinated by them.

One thing I love about Japanese gardens are their ability to mimic nature even when man-made objects are clearly present (if they are not already embedded within nature). Nothing feels out of place, and the materials used – stone and wood – blend well with the surroundings. This fountain and creek are one example of this.

I tried to take a picture of a spider on my way out of the garden, due to its beautiful color patterns and web design. However, because I was still learning how to use my camera, and that the rest of my tour was well ahead of me, the below photo is the best I could do. The most distinct feature of the spider was its abdomen: the yellow, linear spots on its tip made it reminiscent of Buddha's head.

And not to forget this:

Before leaving, we looked into the palace moat to say hello to the less colorful common carp. They do not look impressive now, but imagine what they will look like at level 20!

Now we were on our way to lunch. On the way to the restaurant, we passed by the Kabuki theater. The tour guide told us about this medium: Kabuki is performed by an all-male ensemble, and is spoken in a variant of Japanese so archaic that even native speakers need translators to understand the dialogue; I can imagine it is their equivalent to Old English.

We had lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant located in a modern-stylized shopping center. My meal, as well as almost everyone else's, was pre-paid; however, because some tourists did not pay for the meal and were asked to pay on their own, this gave me confusion as to whom was to pay for whom. However, after asking the tour guide, everything was sorted out.

Everyone who pre-paid for lunch was given the same meal (clockwise from top-left): vegetables, shrimp and vegetable tempura, salad, seaweed, miso soup, meatball, pork, and chicken tempura, steamed rice, and what I assumed was an egg dish. For dessert, we were served chawanmushi, or egg custard. While I did not like the egg dishes, I enjoyed the rest of the meal.

After lunch and listening to the amusing mumblings of the family next to me, we walked to our bus and met our new tour guide for the second half of the tour. It was bittersweet leaving my very first tour guide of the trip, but considering that the two halves are treated as separate tours (with people in the “Grand Full-Day Tour” being part of both), it was understandable. We gave her our thanks and began the second half of the tour.

The stars begin to burn,
and the moon glows in turn.
The lack of the sun's fire
tells me the day's expired.

I lie in my bed, watching T.V,
Hoping the televangelists leave my dulled senses be.
Out in Washington D.C,
work the powers that be.
Regulating, observing,
deterring and, in thought, harmonizing.

Out there, across the sea,
a young man can finally be free.
Bleeding out, about to die,
he sees his freedom finally fly.

In the palaces of oppression
and the shacks of depression,
fear is the precedent,
and major death is a minor event.

I do believe that we can set things right,
but for now, we must endure another sleepless night.

I don't update a lot in this blog, but of the couple entries I did before I talked about YouChew. Today I'm gonna talk about me.

A couple of days ago, I learned that my grandfather has bladder cancer. Then, the day after, my mom got put in the ICU for pneumonia symptoms - she's got fluid in both lungs. I'm not going to apologize for it - I'm very much a Mama's Boy. She lives 6 hrs away and there's no way for us to get up there at the moment.

I have a couple of siblings who live MUCH closer (one lives in the town she's hospitalized in), and so I've been relying on them to visit her and give me updates and such. Thankfully my younger sister actually has been calling me daily to let me know what the situation is.

My Grandpa I'm not so much worried about simply because he's been ready to die since he retired. He retired at 58; he had a surprise birthday party this Sunday. He's 80. I can't imagine living that long just wanting to die because you feel like "Mission Accomplished." He's Catholic, and yeah, I grew up that way too. I still don't get it.

I'm an atheist now, and have been for almost a decade. I still understand the Catholic mental rhetoric though. It's not the Catholic rhetoric and dogma doing this shit to him; I know it's some kinda mental thing. Oh. Speaking of, I should have mentioned he's gotten through a couple stages of Alzheimer's as well. Sorry. Anyways... to continue on with the point I've been trying to make and have been shitty about actually making - I worry about the people involved, both with him and my mom.

I know when either of them die, I'm going to cry about it unabashedly, but it's gonna hit a lot harder when Mom does. But I know that it's gonna hurt for all my family when either of them do. I just hope I'm strong enough to help my siblings especially, regardless of whether it's Mom or Grandpa I'm talking about.

I do have to confess, one of the reasons I'm not going up there is because I had a family member in the past who died who I knew was waiting for me to see them before he let himself pass on. I feel like if I go and visit Mom, she'd just... release her hold on this mortal coil. And I am NOT letting her do that to me, or anyone else.

Her situation seems a lot more dire than my grandpa's right now, considering the aforementioned wanting-to-die thing my grandpa has going on. Also my emotional attachment. I'm just... I'm really fucking upset right now and I have been the past few days and I know you don't get to choose when things happen, but.. I was depressed as shit in the first place, and it's like the universe has taken a giant shit on me (not as much as Mom or Gpa, but I got some splash damage).

I've been feeling especially bad lately as I was trying to say before, and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with this shit. I just hope Mom's tough enough to make it through - Grandpa too, but I know I'm going to lose my shit worse if Mom goes, like I said. I feel like a selfish little shit even saying that. I know I'm going to have to be strong for my siblings, at least, though, if that happens, and the rest of the family, to some extent, regardless of who dies, if anyone does.

There's just too many unknowns right now for me to get a grasp of anything, and I hate it. I'm sorry if I come off like a whiny little bitch; I just don't know how to deal with shit right now, and I'll admit it.

Sometimes you get a dumb idea in your head and if you have the ability to do whatever you want, the only solution is to code it and display it for all to see. I guess that's the main gist of how easter eggs work, if not that's what it's going to be for me. So, that's what I did a few weeks ago and added it right on our very own site, the one you are actually perusing right now. This special bit of code activates a monster house, but for those who don't know what a monster house is, should watch this nifty video.
 

Wait, no, that's not it, it's from a game.
 

Sorry, that's not it either. It's on one of them handheld type devices and it's not actually about a house.
 

There we go. Go into a random room, have it rain pokemon and change the music to fit the occasion.  The number of pokemon that enter is usually a lot more than you fight at a time and is usually quite frustrating, especially if you don't have any attacks that damage all the enemies at once and you have a partner that runs away every time it gets tapped on the shoulder, but I digress.

But why would I get the idea to recreate this here? The first part was that I learning some HTML5 and two of these new things are the canvas and native audio (that is, you don't have to download quicktime or whatever to play music on websites). The second part was that I was listening to the Gates to Infinity soundtrack and the monster house music played while I was reading up on all this. The natural response to this, of course, is to simulate one of these on the YouChew dot net forums.

I was able to do this completely with Javascript, so the only HTML I needed to add was the reference to the script and let it do its magic. The script can be found here but I'll go through a few key parts of how this was done. This was my first ever attempt at using the canvas element, so it's a bit scattered everywhere. A little background about the canvas element. It's essentially a basic drawing application that you can use to create drawings programmatically. It's all raster-based, meaning it doesn't know it's previous state and you just add on top of the drawing.

My basic thought process was to grab a random pokemon, have it drop to a spot on the page, start it's idle animation, and the repeat it for how ever many pokemon I felt like adding. So, of course the first part was to create a sprite sheet, there's no way I would create each individual sprite and swap images to make it look like it's animating. That's way too many resources for the browser to download, especially since most browsers only download at most 3 files from a single site at a time. In the end, I created three sprite sheets: One where each sprite is 32x32 and has 2 frames, one where each sprite is 32x32 and has 3 frames, and one where each sprite is 24x24 and has 2 frames. These were the final sprite sheets I put together to work with the script.
 

There would have been a bigger variety, but with each pokemon having 8 directions and the sprite sheets I used didn't have them in a nice pattern, I had to move each one manually into position. It actually took me longer to create these images than it did to write the entire script.

So, now that I got the images ready and uploaded, the first thing to do is load these images, which is where this SpriteSheet "class" comes into play

function SpriteSheet(source, dimension, frames, idleAnimation)
{
	this.source = source;
	this.dimension = dimension;
	this.frames = frames;
	this.img = null;
	this.rows = null;
	this.idleAnimation = idleAnimation;
}

SpriteSheet.prototype.load = function ()
{
	this.img = new Image();
	this.img.src = this.source;
	this.img.onload = this.loaded();
}
	
SpriteSheet.prototype.loaded = function()
{
	this.rows = this.img.height / this.dimension;
	spriteSheets.push(this);
}

This will allow me to add my spritesheets to an array and I'll know it's ready due to the onload method firing when the image has loaded, however there were some issues with this alone, so I added another check later on. The idleAnimation variable is actually an array, and I use that determine which frame to use as I thought it looked better when each frame had a different duration.

Now that I got my SpriteSheet "class" ready, I've got everything I need to set up the entire thing, which is where this bit of code falls into play, which executes as soon at the webpage is ready.

function prepareMonsterHouse()
{
	if(!canHTML5())
		return;

	spriteSheets = new Array();
	sprites = new Array();

	
	audio = new Audio(mediaLocation + 'mh.mp3');
	audio.loop = true;
	audio.preload = true;
	
	var sprite = new SpriteSheet(mediaLocation + '24x2.png', 24, 2, [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1]);
	sprite.load();
	expectedSheetCount++;
	
	sprite = new SpriteSheet(mediaLocation + '32x3.png', 32, 3, [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,1,1,1,1]);
	sprite.load();
	expectedSheetCount++;
	
	sprite = new SpriteSheet(mediaLocation + '32x2.png', 32, 2, [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1]);
	sprite.load();
	expectedSheetCount++;
	
	waitForImages();
	
}

The canHTML() function is just a check to make sure the browser you are using can handle the canvas and audio tag. If not, then there's no reason for the user to see this and nothing happens. Otherwise, it loads the music and each sprite sheet along with some useful information, such as the dimension of each sprite and how many frames of animation each sprite has, so I can easily calculate where on the spritesheet the sprite lives. The waitForImages function was made since the image onload function didn't work entirely as I had hoped and would sometimes wouldn't be loaded and instead the music would play but no raining pokemon...which is the entire point of this thing.

function waitForImages()
{
	var loaded = true;
	for(var i = 0; i < spriteSheets.length; i++)
	{
		if(spriteSheets[i].rows === 0)
		{
			loaded = false;
		}
		
		if(spriteSheets[i].img.height > 0)
			spriteSheets[i].rows = spriteSheets[i].img.height / spriteSheets[i].dimension;
	}

	if(spriteSheets.length == expectedSheetCount && loaded)
		placeGummiImage();
	else
		setTimeout(waitForImages, 100);
	
}

Since the number of rows is calculated when the images is loaded, I used that to check if there's more than zero rows and if not, try to calculate it from the image height and dimension of each sprite. If the image isn't fully loaded the height will be zero and I'll have to check again at tenth of a second later. If everything is loaded, it's time to place the gummi image on the top right of the page.

function placeGummiImage()
{
	if(!document.getElementById('monsterHouse'))
	{
		var div = document.createElement('div');
		div.id = 'monsterHouse';
		div.style.position = 'fixed';
		div.style.top = '0px';
		div.style.right = '0px';
		
		var canvasElement = document.createElement('canvas');
		canvasElement.id = 'gameCanvas';
		canvasElement.style.height = '0px';
		canvasElement.style.width = '0px';
		
		var imgElement = document.createElement('img');
		imgElement.id = 'monsterHouseGummi';
		imgElement.onclick = startMonsterHouse;
		imgElement.src = mediaLocation + 'gummi.png';
		imgElement.style.styleFloat = "right";
		imgElement.style.cssFloat = "right";

		div.appendChild(imgElement);
		div.appendChild(canvasElement);
		
		document.body.appendChild(div);
	}
}

This is just your basic DOM manipulation, or if you want to think of it as "playing around with the HTML of the page...but not really." Right here, I'm creating the canvas element and image element for the gummi, plus giving a click event on the image to call the startMonsterHouse() function, which is where all the magic begins.

function startMonsterHouse()
{
	var elem = document.getElementById('monsterHouseGummi');
	elem.parentNode.removeChild(elem);
	
	elem = document.getElementById('monsterHouse');
	elem.style.height='100%';
	elem.style.width='100%';
	
	audio.play();
	canvas = document.getElementById('gameCanvas');
	ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
	canvas.style.width = null;
	canvas.style.height = null;
	canvas.width = canvas.parentNode.clientWidth;
	canvas.height = canvas.parentNode.clientHeight;
	
	createPossibleSpriteLocations();
			
	createSprite();
	
	updateSprites();
}

Here, I'm removing the gummi image since it's not needed anymore and setting the canvas to be the size of the entire browser. I won't go into the code of what createPossibleSpriteLocations() does, but it subdivides the screen into 32x32 blocks and places them all into an array that I can randomly pick and then remove so another sprite doesn't choose that location. Before I go into the createSprite() function, there's another "class" I need, one of each individual sprite that will appear on the screen.

function SpriteImage(spriteIndex, rowIndex, directionIndex, x, y)
{
	this.frame = 0;
	this.spriteIndex = spriteIndex;
	this.rowIndex = rowIndex;
	this.directionIndex = directionIndex;
	this.isDroping = true;
	this.x = x;
	this.y = y;
	this.fallingY = 0;
}

SpriteImage.prototype.redraw = function()
{
	var dimension = spriteSheets[this.spriteIndex].dimension;
	var frames = spriteSheets[this.spriteIndex].frames;

	if(this.isDroping)
	{
		//update y;
		this.fallingY += 50;
		if(this.fallingY < this.y)
		{
			ctx.drawImage(spriteSheets[this.spriteIndex].img, dimension * frames * this.directionIndex, dimension * this.rowIndex, dimension, dimension,
							this.x, this.fallingY, dimension, dimension);
			return;
		}
		
		this.isDroping = false;
		dropping--;
		
	}
	
	if(!this.isDroping)
	{
		ctx.drawImage(spriteSheets[this.spriteIndex].img, dimension * (frames * this.directionIndex + spriteSheets[this.spriteIndex].idleAnimation[this.frame]), dimension * this.rowIndex, dimension, dimension,
							this.x, this.y, dimension, dimension);
		this.frame++;
		if(this.frame >= spriteSheets[this.spriteIndex].idleAnimation.length)
			this.frame = 0;
	}
	
	
}

The redraw function is the main meat of this entire thing and it does two things: first it drops the sprite from the top of the screen to the location it's passed in, then it starts its idle animation. Every sprite starts as falling, so to give the illusion that it's falling, the y value of the sprite increases 50 pixels each frame and then draws the first frame of the sprite's idle animation. The canvas context function drawImage allows me to draw one of the sprites since I can choose which part of the image to actually draw. The first argument is the image to draw, followed by the x and y positions value of the image to draw and the height and width. After that I pass in the x and y value to place on the browser along with height and width of the image, which is just the dimension again.

Once the image has gone past the location it will be staying, the isDropping flag is unset and moves to start it's idle animation cycle, which calls the same drawImage function, but uses some additional logic to pick the other frames of the sprite rather than just the first one.

Ok, so now that we have logic put in place to draw a sprite, we need to create a sprite, duh.

function createSprite()
{
	if(possibleSpriteLocations.length === 0)
		return;
		
	if(spriteSheets.length === 0)
		return;
		
	var maxX = canvas.width / 32;
	var maxY = canvas.height / 32;

	var index = Math.floor(Math.random() * possibleSpriteLocations.length);
	
	var x = possibleSpriteLocations[index][0];
	var y = possibleSpriteLocations[index][1];
	
	possibleSpriteLocations.splice(index, 1);
	
	var direction = Math.floor(Math.random() * 8);
	var arr = chooseSprite();
	var spriteIndex = arr[0];
	var rowIndex = arr[1];
	
	sprites.push(new SpriteImage(spriteIndex, rowIndex, direction, x, y));
	dropping++;
}

I won't go too much into detail with this, but it's taking a look at which of the possible sprite locations are available and randomly chooses of them. Then it picks one of the eight directions the sprite could be facing. After all that it picks a random sprite, which I won't go into as it's all math, and creates a SpriteImage with all this information and adds it to a list of sprites as well as increment the number of sprites that are dropping. I use that to make sure there aren't too many sprites dropping at once.

And now the final piece, the update loop that will continue on for all eternity (or you close the tab/browser)

var lastUpdateTime = 0;
var acDelta = 0;
var msPerFrame = 30;


function updateSprites() {
	requestAnimFrame(updateSprites);

	var delta = Date.now() - lastUpdateTime;
	if (acDelta > msPerFrame)
	{
		acDelta = 0;
		ctx.clearRect(0,0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
		for(var i = 0; i < sprites.length; i++)
			sprites[i].redraw();
			
		if(sprites.length < maxSprites && dropping < 5 && possibleSpriteLocations.length > 0)
			createSprite();
	} else
	{
		acDelta += delta;
	}

	lastUpdateTime = Date.now();
}

There's some logic in here that makes it so each frame of animation is drawn in around the same time frame. But the main thing about this is the for loop that goes through all the sprites and calls the redraw method I mentioned back. It also clears the canvas before this so the previous frame is wiped out. After that, it checks to see that the max number of sprites the draw hasn't been exceeded (I gave that a value of 1000), the number of dropping sprites hasn't exceeded 5 and there are other places to a new sprite. If that passes, a new sprite is created and starts dropping.
 
And that's all there is to it, but now comes the question of when should this go?  I originally was going to have it be a 1 in some odd number chance of happening randomly on any page, but that causes a couple problems. First it plays music and autoplaying music is never a good idea.  The second problem is that it's pokemon related, and we can't have that happening anywhere or people will throw an even bigger fit than if music was playing.  So, with that in mind, I decided it should be something the user starts, which is where the gummi image comes into play since at least in the 2nd game (never played the 1st) if you see a bunch of gummis in a room, a monster house is usually there.  I also decided that it should only happen in the pokemon related threads since it's, surprise, pokemon related.  So, I created a hook to look at the topic title and if "pokemon" or "pokémon" is in there, then add the reference to the script.  I also added it to this blog entry so go ahead and click the image on the top right of the site and see it in action.
 
This was a pretty fun easter egg to make and I was pleased with the positive reaction it got, so maybe there will be other kinds of easter eggs throughout the site at some point in the future.

My university was hosting an arcade/pinball expo last Saturday. I really haven't been immersed in the coin-operated arcade genre that much and it was only a short walk from my dorm, so I might as well check it out, take some pics, and satisfy my curiosity.

I am very inexperienced with arcade games mostly because I grew up in the age of the Game Boy Advance. Arcades have lost much of their popularity and there weren't any (that I knew of) to go to where I lived. Unless you count those lame games at the mall and movie theater, but I wasn't planning on wasting money on those things anyway. I was perfectly content with my GBA thank you very much. Ironically one of the first GBA games I got was a Pacman game. (I don't exactly remember which one it was though.) However, I liked Pokemon Leaf Green a lot better, and so the Pacman game gathered dust. As of today, I have know Idea what became of it. Maybe I sold it or something.

When I played the arcade games at the expo, I didn't do well on a majority of them. But I didn't expect to anyway. The controls for some games have a different feel; they're not as smooth or elegant as what I'm used to. But, I still had fun with them and I got through a few levels of Pacman too.

As for the pinball genre; I think my first experience with pinball was probably that Space Cadet pinball game on Windows XP. Then Pokemon Pinball Ruby/Sapphire; which I still like to play every once in a while. (Does the Waluigi Pinball track from Mario Kart DS count too?) Both of these games were very addicting to me and I enjoyed them. But, as far as I can remember I don't think I played on an actual machine before this. I loved the flashing lights, moving parts, and ramps of the pinball machines. The machines were just as addicting as the games I mentioned above if not more. It got especially chaotic during those multi-ball bonuses with 3 - 4 balls flying around at the same time. Then there was that frustration when the ball gets in those far side slots that lead you to losing your ball. (Where's that Pika bonus when I need it?) It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the expo.

Anyway, here are some pictures. Just so you know, I didn't take pictures of every single machine. There are a lot more that are not pictured.

First with the pinball machines:



I AM THE LAW!

Strangely enough, Nesbro posted the music for this in the VG spam thread a few days ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear it that well because of all the other machines around me.



Below (Left -> Right) Simpsons, Star Trek TNG, and poker themed pinball machines



Another pic of the Star Trek TNG pinball machine



Below (Left -> Right) are AC/DC, Avengers, Star Trek (2009 movie), X-Men, and Metallica themed pinball machines.



In my opinion, the Star Trek pinball machine was the most visually appealing machine






On to the Arcade games:

Donkey Kong



Donkey Kong 3 and Donkey Kong Junior



Super Mario Bros



Double Dragon



Capcom Vs. SNK 2



Frogger and Space Invaders



Tron



Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles



Punch-Out



Someone was playing a Star Wars machine and my camera got lazy.



I'M GONNA WRECK IT!

To tell you the truth, I honestly thought Fix It Felix was a fictional game that Disney made up until now.

EDIT: It's actually a mock arcade cabinet Disney used to promote the movie during E3 2012.




Street Fighter II

Someone came over while I was playing and battled with me. I managed to get a few good hits and KO'd him once, but it was too much and I lost 2/3. I was losing to the computers anyway, so I'm happy I won at least one round.



A PSA that appears on the Street Fighter machine (As well as some other machines) during their demo sequence.



Below is a NES and SNES both available for playing. Which I did not expect to find here. So I played Super Mario World, Mario Kart, and Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2. I own all 3 of the GBA ports for the DKC games and it was a bit of a challenge adjusting to the SNES versions. I'm used to using the A button for jumping, but the SNES uses the B button instead. To pick up and throw stuff, you use the X instead of B. Things like this lead to a few deaths.



A case of NES, SNES, and N64 games nearby. I think those are Genesis games at the top of the picture.



Also nearby is a couple of Gamecubes, a Sega Saturn, I think a NES, and something else on the bottom



Yep that's all.

I was originally going to submit this review/Mystery Science Theater 3000 ripoff as the sort of pilot you have to give to be in the writing staff, but i changed my mind. I don't think it's bad, per-say, but it's just not really the kinda thing that would go with what i assume they want. Plus, it's too goddamn long. This entry is all I got done so far, and it's already longer than a typical internet review. All I can say is sit back and prepare for a massive wall of paragraphs. Also, if you wish to read along so you can point out where i was wrong, here's an html version for your convenience. http://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

Greetings, friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. But what if this future is imperfect? A victim of authority overstepping, a seeping hole of escalating surveillance by our own government, and a living hell for our privacy? Well, if it is, then fuck if I know how to do anything about that. I ain't no time traveler. However, there exists a novel. Not just any silly old novel, but a FREE novel! One that will aid us in our conquest for information about what the future may hold! This great tome of wisdom even happens to be written by none other than the great Cory Doctorow, Canadian sci-fi author person that you probably didn't even know existed until now! Because I sure didn't!

Cory Doctorow is none other than the author of Little Brother, a book which on the surface seems to present valid points about its topic (anonymity and privacy, or lack thereof), but also has a habit of simultaneously shoving in ridiculous explanations of technology and its associated culture, along with some rather poorly disguised tracts. Basically, it's as if John Galt was hired to write a manual for MS-DOS. I had previously read this like 2 years ago, and past me seemed to like it, but I have a spotty track record of enjoying things I don't analyze or delve into very much (For instance, I actually kinda liked the movie Sucker Punch. Not really for the mediocreplot , but for the crazy action scenes. And the fanservice. There was most likely a subliminal enjoyment of the fanservice.). In order to avoid this, I have taken it upon myself to look through the story and take apart everything wrong with it (which may be quite a bit.)

So, as we turn our first page (or make our first scroll, since the dude posted free digital versions), we meet our protagonist, Marcus Yallow, supposedly better known as "w1n5t0n". And by god, he wants you to know how to read leet-speak, because he so helpfully mentions "Not pronounced 'Double-you-one-enn-five-tee-zero-enn' -- unless you're a clueless disciplinary officer who's far enough behind the curve that you still call the Internet 'the information superhighway.'". Well, we're one sentence in, and I already have two nitpicks. Why is Marcus assuming the readers are too stupid to understand letters being used in place of numbers? This book was written in 2007, when the idea of character swapping was old as shit, so it's not like it's obscure new knowledge. Also, nobody says "information superhighway" now, and if this book is the "not too distant future of 2 years" I assume it is so far, then I doubt anyone would use that THEN. I'm sure people just call it and will continue to call it "the internet".

But to continue, Marcus is just enjoying his time in class, apparently doing absolutely nothing except downloading crap on his laptop (sounds like my web design class), when he is called to the office. Doctorow takes care to describe that Marcus only closes his laptop 3 quarters shut ("I didn't want to blow my downloads"), and provides some exposition on Marcus's teacher Ms. Galvez, whom we are assured is cool and friendly because she shares a mutual eyeroll with Marcus. Then, as he goes to leave the classroom, we are also introduced to Marcus's friend Darryl in the most unintentionally vulgar way possible. "My boy Darryl gave me a smack on the ass as I walked past." I don't explicitly look for homoerotic subtext (...or DO I!?), but this sentence is basically asking for it.

After he and Darryl go through their wholeheartedly manly and totally not-gay routine slapping of the buttocks, Marcus walks out into the hallway and immediately recieves a phone message, which he runs to the bathroom to read, also deciding to tackle some opinions on which stall is best to defecate and/or hide in (spoiler: he's a middle kinda dude). Turns out, he had just received some exposi- err, e-mail from his home computer, stating that something happened in his favorite game, Harajuku Fun Madness (which somehow sounds like the least Japanese game name I have ever heard). Being a paragon of virtue and education, he decides to skip the rest of the day to play I Swear This Sounds Japanese Fun Madness, whilst unintentionally making a soliloquy that rivals the likes of Shakespeare. "Spending Fridays at school was teh suck anyway, and I was glad of the excuse to make my escape.", he cries out to the heavens, as he ventures forth in the dingy hallway of his high school.

Before he makes his escape from teh suck of his boring Friday schoolday, however, he decides to humor the principal, a Mr. "Fredrick Benson -- Social Security number 545-03-2343, date of birth August 15 1962, mother's maiden name Di Bona, hometown Petaluma,". Nothing screams "I want the world to have privacy" like having your main character know the entire identity of another, right up to his social security. Sure, the principal is kind of a dick, but this really is making Marcus seem more like an evil black hat to me than anything else. Mr. Social Security Number 545-03-2343 accuses Marcus of being involved in a conspiracy to destroy the school's security. Not too hard to believe, given Marcus d0xed someone in the first few pages alone.

Benson and Marcus then proceed to blab for a bit in typical "mischevious kid vs. angry authority figure" fashion, and eventually Benson pledges to bring the law into this. Marcus is then dismissed, taking his sweet time to explain that Benson would never really call the cops, and to talk about all the ridiculous security measures their school has, including but not limited to, adware-filled laptops that contain keyloggers and a veritable Whitman's sampler of surveillance measures, machines that can identify one's gait, and facial recognition cameras replaced with said gait detectors due to a lawsuit. Marcus spends the rest of his class time going on the IM client "IMParanoid" (Doho, I see what Cory did there.)and trying to convince his lover/friend Darryl to skip the rest of school with him so they can play some Harajuku Fun Madness, which he so helpfuly explains is a weeab- I mean, Japan-centric alternate reality game where the grand prize is "ten days in Tokyo, chilling on Harajuku bridge, geeking out in Akihabara, and taking home all the Astro Boy merchandise you can eat.". Not only does Cory Doctorow think Astro Boy is the only anime ever, but he also seems to assume that all of the show's merchandise is edible. Fantastic.

After convincing Darryl to call "bullshit" on their need for an education, Marcus blathers about how he used to only LARP instead of instead of playing alternate reality games, and mentions very specifically that people don't always know that LARPing is only acting and not real, which is either a foreshadowing of a traumatic event he will explain later, or just him hinting at that time he was chased by an elderly woman who mistook his Rainbow Dash themed dark elven archmage getup for him being an alien.

After that much needed statement on his checkered and rainbowy past, Marcus leaves class and apparently warps to the stereotypically nerdy version of the Twilight Zone, where he lets his inner Rod Serling out by explaining what Firefox and The Onion Router are and extolling their virtues, calling them "an indie browser" and "an indie internet connection", respectively. I didn't know it was possible lose all tech credibility in only 2 phrases, but I guess this book has made me learn a lot so far.

The two continue their quest to leave school and play a game on their cellphones, but are halted by the fact that Darryl happens to have a library book in his bag, which the school so helpfully implanted with an RFID tracking tag. The only solution to this ordeal is to go to the teachers' lounge to microwave the book so they can "nuke" its RFID tag, which surprisingly results in a convineient continuation of plot, rather than a burned library book.

But then, as they try to leave, they are caught by the dreaded Charles Walker, bullier of nerd protagonists, member of football teams, and climax of current plots! Also, Marcus mentions that the last time he had a run in with Charles, it resulted in Marcus hanging in the towel/pony-themed fantasy outfit on LARPing (which seems to be a blessing, given how many hobbies Marcus already gushes about), so obviously Charles is a truly heinous individual. Charles isn't going to let these guys just get away, obviously he's going to tell on them for kicks! So what is the ideal solution to getting past this human obstacle? Fighting? Bribery? Sexual harassment?

None of that shit, Marcus is just going to hook up a goddamned botnet and send thousands of calls and messages to Charles's phone, DUH! Surprisingly, this works, because in addition to anger issues, Charles has problems with concentration skills, and immediately forgets these two ever existed. Right after he checks his phone, he gets in trouble for being in the hallway, and having the phone out, proving once and for all, if you aren't the protagonist, you're pretty much fucked.



If you liked it, or just wanted to correct me, leave a comment. I'll try to get around to making more of these, since it's actually rather fun. Bye for now, and see you next technobabble-ridden entry

Well, I done fucked up.

Did a list of my favourite music of last year. I stand by most of the choices on there, but one large mistake slipped through the colander without my noticing.

Bo En (Callum Bowen) is a London producer. He seems to be fluent in Japanese, but also in 808s, melodies and the way people feel. He doesn't capitalize his name, but I'm going to, because he deserves it. Like I said last time, discovered him from a Saint Pepsi tweet, then followed him on Twitter. A lot of what he reposts is people praising his album, which apparently happens so often that I'm surprised this isn't on the actual charts yet. People love this shit, and it's hard not to see why; there's an area in everyone's head that his music is able to hit. It's universal.



Last time I covered this I gave it flak for the overly simplistic, underwritten lyrics. I've changed my stance on that a little. "I love you and I don't have a thing to say" is not Ezra Koening-level lyricism, but it's something that the human race as a whole can connect to. Sometimes there's a lot to be said for simplicity.
The main lyrical themes of this album are loneliness, the passing of time and simple, humble affection. These are all universal concepts but can very easily leave me bored if done wrong. Bo En's secret is in the instrumentals. He pumps them up until they're planet-sized, until the lyrics seem bigger than they ever would be otherwise. More harmonies! More wildly clicking 808 rims! Throw in a drop here and there! And this could have been so easily ruined too, but Bo is obviously an accomplished composer alongside everything else. Every groove is tight enough. Every drop explosive enough. The reverb is impeccable. All the chords fit perfectly. The vocals are surprisingly solid. The man knows exactly what he's doing, in the same way Nigel Godrich does, or Brian Wilson did (yes I just drew a comparison to Pet Sounds. Don't act like Bo En isn't on the same level).

That's about all I have to say this time around. Writing about this album is harder than you'd think, because the album's strengths are not in the complexities, but in the pop sensibilites. In less sterile terms, this album just sounds ridiculously good. Just obscenely listenable. What can you even say about that? I'm not going to find the words to describe why Miss You works, or how Winter Valentine actually made me cry last time I listened to it. All I can say is that Bo En killed it in 2013. Thorougly killed it.

On the list I made, this was #5, I think? It should have been #1. You know, I do still like PISS SPEARS, the #1 on that list, but this is worlds more worthy of the #1 spot. Tell you what: I'm not editing that list, for posterity reasons, but Pale Machine is my real favourite album of last year. It may even be classic material, depending on your definition of a classic. I guess we'll see if it's still as good in 5 years' time.

5/5: STRONG RECOMMENDATION

http://boen.bandcamp.com/album/pale-machine-maru-123

Hey everyone. Here's a little series that I wanted to make since last December, and it's Ten Recommended Poops for Enter Month Here.

Why am I doing this? Well, I see these Top 10 list praising the best poops, but no one ever gives any thought to the poops with minimal views. And, I really want to support the underdogs here.

And before we begin, I'd just like to say, this isn't "The Top 10 Poops" and it's not in any order, just 10 poops that I feel, if you haven't watched them, give them a view.

1. "YouTube Poop: Mr. Dumass Don't Take Mess" by sexydarius97




You got to feel good to have a comment like this on one of your poops, I do have to agree with Feline. This was one of my favorites this year. And I think the humor is added to the fact that he uses such a bizarre source, an A&W commercial where the major joke is the guy calls him a "dumbass". Perfect "dumbass material". And I think one of my new favorite quotes in a poop is "I'm a go-getter."

2. "Luigi Demonstrates the Birds and Bees to the Dino Twerp With Questionable Imagery" by Captainn Smonge


This poop is very Imaperson. So if you're into his and his ripoff's style of poop, check this out. But it's more than just that. Because after the poop, there's this large compilation of saas jokes, which is some how mesmerizing. But after that, there's a scene where it combines the Super Mario Bros. Movie with The Simpsons, which is pretty amusing. If you have to, check it out for that.

3. "King Herod Should Have Taken a Left at Albuquerque" by theFXexpert26


FXexpert had a lot of good poops this month, but I'm only taking one poop per person, I'd pick this one. It's appeal is one that I enjoy a lot. Take a phrase and play as much as you can. "Face to face to face to face." Repeating scenes are one's I rather enjoy and this poop loves that trope.

4. "Spring Break Gets Brain Damage from Italian Cuisine" by MassimoVTV


Do you like Spongebob and do you like rap music? But most importantly, do you like the alternative style of pooping, but it still has a hint of regular? Then I'd suggest Massimo, who had two Spongebob poops this month, but between this and "Klasky Csubob Swags Out His Kicks" I suggest this one.

5. "Luigi Pulls His Groin" by TheMrAkihabara


If there's truly anyone on this list underrated it's this guy. This guy makes some really great poops, but only has 3 subs to his name. I'm not sure if he's an experienced pooper under a new name, or some new to the scene, but I can only see him get better.

6. "newboycomingthrough" by cantflyman


There was a little spike among Youchew relating to "Hey Arnold!", and this was one of the poops in the result.

7. "SKOODGE'S CROSS COUNTRY LEG HUMPING" by mowub


A tennis round. But done right. This honestly feels like a poop actually made by someone alone and not a glichy mess of no personality.

8. "SUPA KOWAI OJOUJO KUN" by Dieathan


Another tennis round much like number 7, but with anime instead.

9. "Uh oh." by Konanarian


If there's one positive to the death of Danny Wells, it made people create some wonderful Super Show poops, much like this one.

10. "KennyTAckerman and Vic Romanonoodles Discuss Their Special Feelings Towards Each Other" by ProfessorCheeseBall


Okay, PBC isn't really underrated, he's rated. He has little over 900 subs. How is that underrated? Well, this is about poops, not poopers, and this poop only has (As I write this) 262 views. I think it may have to do with the source, which I don't even know what it's from, but if you skipped it because of that, give it a look. It's still CheeseBall being CheeseBall.

Song Showcase – February 2, 2014

Ray Stevens – Mr. Businessman



Stevens was most famous as a writer of humorous songs, including his big hit in 1974 entitled “The Streak,” “Ahab the Arab,” and "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving, Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills.” However, this tune, written by Stevens himself, could not be classified as funny under any circumstance. Instead, it is a scathing reprimand of the archetypal “Mr. Businessman,” a busybody more concerned with work than things like nature and family. As Stevens elaborates on, such a life cannot end well. Highly recommended for those who prefer well-written serious songs.

Alan Hawkshaw and Alan Parker – The Difference



One of the big names in British library music during the late ‘60s through the 1980s was keyboardist Alan Hawkshaw. Recording for such labels as KPM and Bruton, he seemed to be able to play a little of everything, from the mellow (“A Man Alone”) to the danceable (“Move Move Move”). This is definitely on the mellower end of the spectrum. I enjoy songs that you can sit back, close your eyes, and just relax to, and this fits those criteria. A fellow stock music mainstay, Alan Parker, is also featured on here. Looking for something calming? Look no further.

Ian McLagan – Never Say Never



I have never been a huge fan of live performances. Though I fully understand the energy and atmosphere that a live concert lends itself to, some songs are simply better under the controlled environment of the studio. McLagan, a former member of the Small Faces, is seen here performing this song (originally released a few years ago with his Bump Band) at the Austin (Texas) Community College Northridge campus. It could be argued that this version, only McLagan, a microphone, and a piano, is more beautiful in its simplicity than the well-produced Bump Band version. Whichever you choose, this is a beautiful soul-influenced ballad, and McLagan does a stellar job of pouring out the soul in the lyrics with his voice and heart.

The Enfields – I’m For Things You Do



When listening to garage rock, it is common practice to dismiss inferior sound quality as normal. After all, when groups of teens get together in a studio and cut a couple of songs, it’s undoubtedly going to be on a shoestring budget (unless their dad’s a Congressman). That said, try to look past the sound quality on this selection and examine what lies beneath. There’s a pretty neat sound emanating from the guitar, and whichever Enfield is playing it isn’t terribly shabby at it, either. The drummer’s on beat most of the time, and takes a few liberties with fills – all of which add to the song’s pace. The lyrics aren’t much, as with many garage songs, but it’s better than nothing. Dig the ending!

The Rockin’ Roadrunners – Down



Making a special appearance on the Tener label out of Florida, this is another garage rock song – but it is a damned unique one. For one thing, the introduction to the song is unlike anything I’ve ever heard on this sort of record – it is supposedly a heavily reverbed Jew’s harp, which makes other appearances during the song. The mix between the lead singer’s vocals and the cascading choruses of the other vocalists in the background is very well-executed. The other real highlight of this record is the drumming – a solid, relatively fast beat is laid down and kept constant throughout the song, with well-timed fills throughout. Combine the unique production, two great guitar solos, stellar vocals, and rock-solid drumming, and you have a record that could have – and should have – made it big.

Hey everyone. Here's a little series that I wanted to make since last December, and it's Ten Recommended Poops for Enter Month Here.

Why am I doing this? Well, I see these Top 10 list praising the best poops, but no one ever gives any thought to the poops with minimal views. And, I really want to support the underdogs here.

And before we begin, I'd just like to say, this isn't "The Top 10 Poops" and it's not in any order, just 10 poops that I feel, if you haven't watched them, give them a view.

1. "YouTube Poop: Mr. Dumass Don't Take Mess" by sexydarius97




You got to feel good to have a comment like this on one of your poops, I do have to agree with Feline. This was one of my favorites this year. And I think the humor is added to the fact that he uses such a bizarre source, an A&W commercial where the major joke is the guy calls him a "dumbass". Perfect "dumbass material". And I think one of my new favorite quotes in a poop is "I'm a go-getter."

2. "Luigi Demonstrates the Birds and Bees to the Dino Twerp With Questionable Imagery" by Captainn Smonge


This poop is very Imaperson. So if you're into his and his ripoff's style of poop, check this out. But it's more than just that. Because after the poop, there's this large compilation of saas jokes, which is some how mesmerizing. But after that, there's a scene where it combines the Super Mario Bros. Movie with The Simpsons, which is pretty amusing. If you have to, check it out for that.

3. "King Herod Should Have Taken a Left at Albuquerque" by theFXexpert26


FXexpert had a lot of good poops this month, but I'm only taking one poop per person, I'd pick this one. It's appeal is one that I enjoy a lot. Take a phrase and play as much as you can. "Face to face to face to face." Repeating scenes are one's I rather enjoy and this poop loves that trope.

4. "Spring Break Gets Brain Damage from Italian Cuisine" by MassimoVTV


Do you like Spongebob and do you like rap music? But most importantly, do you like the alternative style of pooping, but it still has a hint of regular? Then I'd suggest Massimo, who had two Spongebob poops this month, but between this and "Klasky Csubob Swags Out His Kicks" I suggest this one.

5. "Luigi Pulls His Groin" by TheMrAkihabara


If there's truly anyone on this list underrated it's this guy. This guy makes some really great poops, but only has 3 subs to his name. I'm not sure if he's an experienced pooper under a new name, or some new to the scene, but I can only see him get better.

6. "newboycomingthrough" by cantflyman


There was a little spike among Youchew relating to "Hey Arnold!", and this was one of the poops in the result.

7. "SKOODGE'S CROSS COUNTRY LEG HUMPING" by mowub


A tennis round. But done right. This honestly feels like a poop actually made by someone alone and not a glichy mess of no personality.

8. "SUPA KOWAI OJOUJO KUN" by Dieathan


Another tennis round much like number 7, but with anime instead.

9. "Uh oh." by Konanarian


If there's one positive to the death of Danny Wells, it made people create some wonderful Super Show poops, much like this one.

10. "KennyTAckerman and Vic Romanonoodles Discuss Their Special Feelings Towards Each Other" by ProfessorCheeseBall


Okay, PBC isn't really underrated, he's rated. He has little over 900 subs. How is that underrated? Well, this is about poops, not poopers, and this poop only has (As I write this) 262 views. I think it may have to do with the source, which I don't even know what it's from, but if you skipped it because of that, give it a look. It's still CheeseBall being CheeseBall.

Day 2: Typhoon Tour of Tokyo (Afternoon Tour)

On our way to the next stop, the tour passed by the The Tsukiji Market, where we learned about the fish auctions that take place every dawn. Because of how fresh the fish is this time of day, having just been caught, the auction prices can reach astronomical levels! This is also the location of Sushi Dai, one of my planned stops during my stay in Tokyo; because of its proximity to the auctions, it is famed for its food's freshness, with the red clam being served alive! Unfortunately, due to jet lag and time constraints, I was unable to visit either the market or the restaurant.

After passing the fish market, we reached our next destination: the beautiful Hamarikyu Gardens. Another one of Tokyo's green spaces, these gardens have artfully planted foliage complimented by miniature hills, lagoons, and man-made structures. It was Tokyo's equivalent to Central Park, having a view of the surrounding skyscrapers while maintaining its own serene atmosphere. Welcoming the visitors were these intricately-trained pine trees:

Never before had I seen gardening of this intricacy: hundreds of years worth of work, along with extensive support systems to hold the tree and manipulate its growth just so. The trees after were no disappointment either:

When looking at these trees, I was reminded by my brother, who recently discovered a passion and career in horticulture. Thinking of how he would enjoy Japan for its gardening, I discovered how wide of an appeal this country would have for various tastes; this would not be as apparent from an outside perspective, as without experience one could only appreciate it for its globalized qualities.

It is sights like these that anyone from anywhere would appreciate:

I wanted to go into this tea house and be part of a ceremony, but I was afraid of holding up my tour from leaving again:

This is for Miss10:

This hill has some terrific views of both the gardens and the city skyline:

Another wonder of these gardens:

This site was once a tea house, until it burned to the ground in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.

And some more scenery in the quieter part of the gardens:

Before leaving, I came across this Shinto shrine:

Our next stop was the Sumida river cruise, which went from the Hamarikyu Gardens to Asakusa. By now, the skies have completely cleared, appearing as if there was never a typhoon there. This allowed for some terrific photos both from the pier and the boat, including of the area I will be visiting the next day, Odaiba:

And some more lovely sights of the city:

This ninja is not even trying...

By this point, jet lag was catching up to me, and I was becoming fatigued. Because of this, it was unfortunately becoming more difficult to appreciate the sights of Tokyo. However, this did not make the next and final stop any less memorable, as Sensō-ji Temple was my first experience in a Buddhist temple. With the evening setting in on the temple and its swap meet, it set a festive mood that would have been enjoyable had I been more awake.

Upon entering the outer gate, or Kaminarimon, our tour guide told us that the lantern that is normally suspended was taken down temporarily; we were “lucky” to see this very rare instance, and find a banner in its place:

Between the two gates, the tour guide warned about the crowded swap meet in between the two gates, and advised us to follow her plushie-topped staff. I was able to keep up, but had some trouble meandering through the dense crowds.

Beyond the inner gate, or Hozomon, I learned about the structures and activities of Buddhist temples like this one. On one side of the plaza is the pagoda, where the Buddha's ashes are kept; on the other is a fortune stand, where one can make a donation and receive either a good or bad fortune; and in the center is an incense burner, where one can light an incense stick and stick it in the sand.

Before entering the temple, the tour guide gave us a brief amount of time to visit the shops before returning. I walked from one end of the strip to the other, glancing at the various shops and food stands. I would have had dinner here, as well as gorged on various pastries, except my jet lag robbed me of my appetite. Instead, I settled for a single chocolate manjū; the few bites I had were heavenly.

Because Japanese Buddhism largely overlaps with Shintoism, both abide by similar practices; in this case, purification fountains are present in the entrance of every temple just as they are in every shrine. At this temple's fountain, I finally learned the correct way to purify myself before entering such a building, thanks to my tour guide.

The inside of the temple was ornate, with gold objects, colorful walls, ambient lighting, and intricate panels. Unfortunately, because I had so much trouble with my camera during this leg of the trip (it was not until the Nara tour that I discovered the “Program” setting that fixed so many photos), these photos could not do the interior justice. Much of it had to do with the time of day these photos were taken, as it was nightfall by the time we exited the temple.

Our tour was lucky enough to witness another Shinto wedding in the shrine next to the temple. By this point, the couple was already within the shrine, presumably already engaged. Due to the aforementioned camera trouble, I again could not take a decent photo of the weeded couple: because of the lack of light, combined with the camera's flash, the inside of the shrine is blackened out. The kamis really are serious about keeping me from taking pictures! Still, seeing the smiles on the couple's faces made the sight a memorable one.

I think this guy's in the wrong time period...

After the samurai's performance, the tour was finally over: we were on the bus ride back to our hotels. It was a long, dull leg of the trip, especially with my weariness. What made this leg of the trip special, however, was its passing through Akihabara: I was in awe of the bright lights, stimulating colors, and abundance of anime paraphernalia. This was another Tokyo district that had a stimulating atmosphere, this time even more so than Shinagawa Station. A few of my fellow travelers got off the bus here, and had I been more awake, I would have followed suit. Before leaving the district, I made a mental note: “I must return here tomorrow.”

After waiting for the bus to make its rounds through the hotels, I was finally dropped off at my own hotel. I had no appetite whatsoever, so I settled for some onigiri and a bottle of carbonated juice from the 7-11. Before returning to the hotel to eat, I caught a glimpse of this prettily-lit walkway:

After eating a very light dinner, I planned out my next day (Comic City Spark!!!) and went to bed.