Happiness is a warm [laser] gun.

Richard and I were watching Back to the Future II for the eighth time in four days (gotta love the variety of programming that 12 HBO channels offers,) and talking about its depiction of the future. For those of you who lacked a childhood, Back to the Future II is the flawless sequel to one of the best films ever made about time travel. This time around, Doc and Marty take the Delorean to the year 2015, which is pretty much the late 80's with a bunch of future clichés thrown in. You know, flying cars, video phones, holograms, etc.

A lifetime of watching movies like this has made me a little disappointed of the future that we live in. Sure, we have the Internet in our pockets, PS3s, and cardboard boxes that pop up fresh tissues each time you pull one out, but there's still stuff that's lacking. Wouldn't you guys like to see food pellets that are adequate substitutes for full meals? Conveyor belt sidewalks? Robot companions? Cities in the sky?

Personally, the future innovation that I'm most disappointed about still not coming to fruition is the laser gun, or if you're old school--the ray gun. Campy sci-fi pulp dating back 60 and 70 years featured images of spacemen wielding weapons that emitted not bullets, but lasers or concentric circles of light. Now, I'm not a weapons enthusiast by any means. I don't belong to the NRA and I could give a fuck less about the recent passing of their biggest celebrity member and bible film star Charlton Heston . . . but I want to live in a world where laser guns exist! A world where gangsters carry electric "gats" instead "9's" and shootouts are more like Hoth than South Central Los Angeles.

The second amendment has gotten stale. As long as guns are mechanical, gun powder-filled, bullet holding contraptions, I'm boycotting weapons all together. The future is now!

Kirb Your Enthusiasm

The Smash Bros. thing still hasn't gotten old. Sorry, I promise I will only talk about it for a little while this time. My two favorite characters in the game are Meta Knight and King Dedede, both of which are from the Kirby universe. I've always loved Kirby. The charm of the characters always overshadowed the mohawked-baby-level difficulty and resulted in some really enjoyable games. Anyways, all this Smash Bros.-induced Kirby musing encouraged me to dust off my copy of Kirby's Adventure for the NES and start playing it again. And needless to say; brilliance ensued.

I'm in Yogurt Land right now, and I fucking love it. It's amazing how much animation they managed to pull out of the NES. Kirby's gelatinous body reacts exactly how you'd expect to the environments and situations. The gameplay is also spot-on, which you would expect from any platformer developed in-house at Nintendo. This was also the first Kirby game that allowed you steal your enemies' abilities by eating them. The variety and usefulness of these power-ups keeps things interesting. I highly recommend it if you have a functioning NES or a Wii, since it's available on Virtual Console.

I wish Nintendo would get on the fucking ball and hurry up and release Kirby's Dreamland 3 on the Virtual Console. Sadly, I missed this particular Kirby outing when it was originally released on the SNES. I blame it on the fact that the SNES was gasping its dying breaths underneath trampling "32-bit" and "64-bit" consoles. It's sad, really. But I will play it someday!

I made two purchases today. One of which won't be here for a few days because I bought it online. Oh, and fuck you Best Buy for not carrying it. You have about 70 copies of Wild Hogs on Blu-Ray, but you can't spare the shelf-space for a masterpiece?!
My other purchase was a wild-hair sort of thing. I'm sure that my memory has been kind to this show, and that actually seeing will tarnish my childhood in some irrevocable way . . . but fuck it. This is sitting in my living room and I'm watching it tonight!

In other materialistic news, the Dual Shock 3 hits next week with a $55 price tag. I've been pretty vocal about how I'm totally over rumble, which I am, but I think I'll be forced to pick this up. You see, the SIXAXIS is the PS3's current standard controller, and it's perfectly functional, only it weighs about 5 micrograms. There's no substance to it. No heft. Anyone who knows me knows that I need heft. Oh, and it comes in white, too. Bitchin'.

Colonoscopy

Apartments: I hate living in an apartment. Well, perhaps that's a bit extreme--sometimes I hate living in this apartment. I've mentioned the shitfest family that lives downstairs and their terrible mohawked children. Yes, mohawks. If any of you reading this have children and give them a mohawk before their actually old enough to "rebel" and choose to get a mohawk themselves, then you are setting your child on a path to unemployment, crime, numerous STDs, bastard children of their own, and overall awfulness. Fuck them. Oh, then there's the dick head in the black Honda Civic that parks in the middle of the lot completely blocking access to my parking space overnight. I tried to get his car towed to no avail. There is no justice in this world.

Eulogy: Lex and I downloaded Super Mario World on the Virtual Console the other night and began the super fun task of 96-ing it while drunk. This made me realize how much Nintendo is snoozing by holding out on the release of Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island. So, the next day I dug out my SNES and fired it up; only there was no fire. I panicked. I tried plugging the AC adapter into another outlet, but it still wouldn't work. This is seriously tragic, folks. The little grey box that served as a vessel for some of the best entertainment products ever produced is dead. I'm talking about A Link to the Past, Super Castlevania IV, Contra III, Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter II, Super Metroid, Kirby's Dream Course . . . TRAGIC. And don't even try to tell me about emulation. It's not the same.

Inland Empire: I don't think I've given any blogspace to Inland Empire, which is pretty goddamn shameful on my part. The film has been available on DVD for over six months, so you should own it already. But for those of you haven't seen it, you are totally missing out on an experience. My words cannot do Lynch's work any justice, so I'll refrain from even trying. Oh, and download the song Polish Poem and listen to it on repeat.

Going Out: I met my friend Sandra and her boyfriend Tom last night at the ol' hangout and was immediately uncomfortable about being there. I asked Tom, who hails from San Diego, if he finds going out in California to be the terrible exercise in boredom that I think it is here. He pretty much said the same things that I've been bitching about, which made me feel a lot better. It's not that I've become embittered and anti-social, it's just that the people that frequent bars are 90% garbage.

Halo 3: New maps. Time to pwn some n00bZ.

Dojo Dump[ing]

You should probably go to Hawaii. It's good for you. It's good for your mind, body, soul, and libido.

I've been back since Tuesday, and I haven't done a whole lot since. I miss the smell of the beach and the general Jurassic Park-esque appearance of everything. But hey, it was fun!

I posted some photos on the ol' Fakebook, but I don't know what the fuck is up with my photo application. It somehow disappeared from the list underneath my profile picture, and in order to find it I had to go through other people's photos of me. Weeeeeird. But yeah, they're totally there for your viewing/commenting/masturbation material use. Just kidding! Kind of.

There isn't a whole lot else going on in this life of mine. The wicked get-paid-to-do-nothing tutoring job that I was milking ended. *Le sigh* The reason, of course, was lack of funds. Which I was pretty much expecting any day now, but it still sucks. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to the kiddies. You see, unlike subbing, I worked with the same kids everyday. Some of them were garbage, but a lot of them were pretty cool. Oh well, perhaps they'll think of me when taking the state-mandated aptitude test.

Other than that, I have been completely consumed by Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I didn't play either of the two prequels with any regularity, so what's old-hat to most is FULL-ON WIN to me. It's beautiful chaos. It's super easy to mash buttons, so your videogame-hating girlfriend can pick it up and give it a go. But the more you play, the more you realize that there are a shit-ton of things going on at once that you need to be constantly aware of. This is where the "strategy" element comes in. Sure, like Mario Kart and Mario Party there's a chance factor with the item distribution that can rapidly change the momentum of the match. But, if you're aware of what's going on around you, you can still prevail. Which is why I think I like it so much more than I though I would. As I said, having never played it the prequels I completely missed the depth. It's definitely not Virtua Fighter 5, but you can be good at it.


I'm in the process of unlocking characters right now, which is very time consuming, but I still have some time for multiplayer. If I haven't already gotten your child-predator-proof friend code from you, go ahead and send it my way. My Meta Knight skillZ will be feared by all.

Flex and hold

The only good thing about going to the gym is the people watching, no doubt about it. Even though there are multiple big screens showing things like Seinfeld and Jeopardy!, I'm much more entertained by watching the people that come and go from the cardio-room.

I always wonder, "Do these people hate coming here as much as I do?" Working out sucks. It really, really does. There about 900 things I can think of off the top of my head that I'd rather do than run in place like a fucking hamster or lift heavy objects. Right?!

Sure, some people love the gym. You know the ones, the guys that drink steroid smoothies and buy their tank tops two-sizes too small to emphasize their guns. But what about everyone else? What about the mildly overweight mom and the balding dad? Are they really enjoying themselves there? I seriously doubt it.

Keep on working out all you want, buddy. We'll still hate you.

I don't want to go into self-esteem issues, and society pressure to be fit, and all that bullshit that's been said a million times. We all know that the vast majority of gym-goers are like mildly overweight mom, balding dad, and myself. We go in vain. We go simply to feel better about ourselves at the end of the day. Because seriously, the time it would take to make any drastic change in our bodies is something that we aren't willing to sacrifice.

I sure-as-fuck aren't giving up my FFXII sessions, mildly overweight mom ain't giving up her PTA meeting, and balding dad, well . . . He's got shit to do, too. And that's fine! Barely working out is better than not working out at all.

So the next time you skip going to the gym because you're just soooo busy, don't fret. At least you make the effort sometimes. Like today, I was busy playing Super Buster Bros. with Richard, so I just couldn't find the time. But yeah, I'll be there tomorrow. Totally.

Finality times twelve

I'm not tired at all. I should be, because I "worked" today; there's a possibility that I'll do it again tomorrow. But tired? Nah . . . sleep is for n00bZ.

Earlier today, I spoke to my friend about the inevitable redundancy of life. Even though I know it's unavoidable, it still bothers me. It seems as though that life is made up of a number of constants that can be marginally effected by a few variables. The constants are, of course, the aspects of life that make us fit into society: waking up in the morning, working, paying bills, etc. The variables are the distractions. Leisure. Activities, relationships, and states of being, that when added, subtracted, multiplied or divided by the constants help to make things interesting.

The beauty of it is, we can choose whether we focus our attention and efforts on the constants or the variables. I have friends that are perfectly content to follow the routine, pay their taxes, and exist as productive citizens. By that same token, there's the floaty vagabonds that don't have any idea what the fuck is going on, and love it that way. Neither way is wrong, it's just a choice that people tend to make when they "grow up."

My problem is that I cannot decide which category I fall into. I suppose at 25, I'm about as grown up as I am going to get . . . Yet I still exist in this quasi-adolescent, hedonistic fantasy land--where I want to be taken seriously as an adult, but sure as fuck don't act like one.

I've adopted several "philosophies" over the years, all of which ultimately contradicted each other to the point of death. There was no overlap, here. These ideas were mostly the results of external variable factors, such as the girl I was dating, or the group of friends I was hanging out with, or whatever. I'm not especially susceptible to group-think, but I had my moments of weakness.

The question is, can there really be a balance? I'm pretty sure that these constants and variables form a system, and not an equation. Those may claim to have balance in their lives, but they're always leaning more in one direction than the other.

WHO KNOWS!?

I don't think I ever will. I do know, however, that it's really fucking easy to stray from your intended topic of discussion when the hour is late and your mind begins to wander. I suppose I'll write about Final Fantasy XII some other time.

It's bedtime for Bonzo.

Splooge to the Music!

It's alarming how many songs out there feature lyrics about ejaculation. Seriously, "bitch" and "ass" are taboo on most radio stations, but if a song features detailed descriptions of fucking splooging--well, that's a-ok. This of course is nothing new, because as long as men and women have been able to strum chords on a guitar, they've written songs about their climaxes.

It's just one of those counterintuitive censorship mentalities you see in every media. On television for instance, people get shot, operated on, ran over, punched in the face, strangled, and tortured during prime time. But will you ever see a bare ass or--gasp--a female nipple?! Fuck no. After every bible thumping soccer mom in the country had a brain hemorrhage when Janet Jackson's boob popped out during the Super Bowl, all bets have been off. Violence: fine. Sex: very bad.

Which brings me back to the music thing. I really cannot see in any way how this sort of thing is allowed. It's not like it could possibly "slip by" the censors. 'Cause dammit, I don't care if you're a prepubescent teen or old enough to have seen both World Wars, when someone says "come into you," there's only one goddamn thing that could mean.

Seriously, I'm trying to think of how one can "come into" someone else and have it be appropriate subject matter somewhere other than Penthouse Forums, and I just can't. To paraphrase my dashboard dictionary, "come" is a present tense verb that means to move toward, travel, accompany, reach to, occur, join, make progress, and become apparent to. All of those are things that people do, but none of which can be done in someone else. So even in the broadest interpretation of the word, if you're coming into someone, you are fucking that person and fucking ejaculating--nothing else!

You don't have too look very deep into your music folder to find examples of this, either. Every artist from the über risqué to the most squeaky clean does it--and it's embraced by all. In fact biggest song of 2007 nothing but an ode to the money shot. You know the one, where the skinny girl sings euphemistically about umbrellas and rain? Well anyways, the last few lines of the song go like this:

. . . baby come into me
Come into me
It's raining (raining)
Ooo baby it's raining
You can always come into me
Come into me

Always, huh? Well, I sure hope little Rihanna is on the pill. But all joking aside, this song was huge. Fucking huge. So abhorrently popular that it's a likely candidate to appear on the next Kidz Bop CD and it's all about coming.

Now I'm the last person to promote censorship, I fucking hate it. But I would like to see some consistency with what's edited and what isn't. If shit pop songs can rule the airwaves with lyrics like this, then why the can't you say "shit" on TV? It makes no sense.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to listen to some radio-friendly erotica.