I've Changed My Mind
I tried to convince myself that I can go the logical route and have that Gauntlet Legends arcade game in the home arcade. I mean... its got a lot of positive reasons why to have it, it is one of the ultimate pick up and play type of games that will give years of gameplay. But in the end, I just can't shake how amazing Ninja Turtles was to me as a kid.
If you were a kid in the late 80's, chances are you loved the hell out of the Ninja Turtles. The cartoon was something all my friends and all the kids in school watched, and it was a given that someone would have a toy or two. Then there came the video game. Not the arcade, no, I am talking about this. Look at that game cartridge. There's a BIG hint right there about what is coming. They're wearing all the same color bandanna. That's not right, and any 8 year old will point that out to you. Anyone who played this game knows what a turd the game is. Now... kids knew their parents went and payed good money for the game, and well, we didn't have anything else to compare it to, right? That's the Ninja Turtle game and its all we got. We tried to convince ourselves it was great. Except we did have something to compare it to.
My local Walmart had this in the front and holy crap did it get a lot of business. Luckily they had the 4 player one so that it cut down on lines. That is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and oh did it piss off every kid that ever played the NES game. Every single kid said "why wasn't this on the Nintendo?". It looked like the cartoon, it had the cartoon voice actors, and it played how you saw the cartoon looked. I loved this game. I tried to tell myself that I could play a version of it on the "Sit Down" arcade machine I talked about in an earlier post, but what arcade in my life would be complete without that arcade artwork, the 4 player set up, and those sounds playing on repeat. Price be damned, if I had an Arcade in my home, the whole point of it would be to have this game in there. At $2300 average, its the most expensive thing in the room. Ouch. I know people say "Turtles in Time" was better, frequently being rated best beat'em up of all time, but this was the one that made my 8 year old self super happy.
August 4th, 2014
Studio Ghibli is in trouble, that much is for sure. The reality is that no matter who directs a movie, it costs them the same amount of money to create that movie. Hayao Miyazaki is beloved in Japan, thought of as a living treasure. He was the primary director at Studio Ghibli, and when he made a movie, Japan came in droves. He has struggled for almost 20 years to find someone to take his role and continue forward with the studio. Isao Takahata is a contemporary of his, and has made many movies with the studio as well. His movies are fundamentally different than Miyazaki. Miyazaki does fantastical journeys and super natural movies where wonderful things happen on screen. Takahata does movies that are much more dramatic and grounded in reality. While the critics love them both, less people go and see Takahata movies. Hayao's son has made a few films as well, but they too pull in much lower numbers than Hayao's. Hayao Miyazaki officially retired last year, and the company's last 2 movies are considered huge flops in attendance. They have a 4th Director that recently made the really really great Arietty, but his latest movie "When Marnie was There" did not even make $4 million at the box office. If you haven't watched any Studio Ghibli stuff, then you are missing out on a rare treasure of this world.
Pretzel buns is a food fad I can get behind. I do not care who does them, pretzel buns are flippin' awesome. Mustard was used to hide lesser quality food in the early 1900's. Eventually food quality got better, but people got a taste for mustard. Our mustards had gotten stale after a century of use. The yellow mustard you grew up with just became boring. Now we have aisles of mustards of dozens of types and textures. I feel like the pretzel bun is absolutely the product of our new varied mustard. The best combination is not actually the course ground whole grain mustard, no. I dare you to get the southwest spicy mustards with the peppers and the redish color. It will enhance that pretzel bun like you would not believe. I'm hoping to have some good food with pretzel buns this weekend.
Fall is coming. Something about the later half of the year triggers several yearnings within me. First, I start dreaming of going to school. Its a habit I had as a child, something I which I hated that I did because I wanted Summer vacation to last. Now its just nostalgia. The other is I want pipe tobacco. I generally like non-flavored English blends with lots of Latakia for a "campfire smokey flavor". I am having a weird craving for vanilla this year though, which is.. I've never bought a vanilla pipe tobacco as far as I can remember. I did used to have "Moontrance" and "Eileen's Dreams" cigars from C.A.O. and they have vanilla in them, so maybe that's why.
No comments:
Post a Comment