About time, really. Nice to see some alternatives to Europe and Asia.

Yo. Y'all remember that Hannakah song? "Puuuut on your yamachaauuuhhh, heeeeeere coooomes hannakaaaahh". It was sorta popular in the 90s, not really a pop hit but if you knew Adam sandler you probably heard him sing that song at some point. Not as good as Chris Farley Lunch Lady shit, but a cornerstone in the Sandler Legacy.



I actually rather like Sandler. After seeing Funny Guys anyway. But before that, him and his crew made a foray into animation and the Hannakah spirit. It's true! They called it Eight Crazy Nights. What would these goofy potty-mouthed putzes be doing mashing up corny Dreamworks shit with Sandler's impressive blend of crass and terribly bland humor?

A movie where Sandler does the voices and is pretty much 2 hours of him talking to himself. With Rob Schneider narrating.

Rob fucking Schneider.



Yeah, the two have been doing terrible movies since time immemorial (I can't remember past 12, help me doc). They're good friends, sorta like that dorky Paul Blart Mall Cop actor. I think Sandler produces these movies to keep the lights on at his buddy's houses. How the fuck else do you explain Grown Ups and the fact that it had a fucking SEQUEL?! For shame, Chris Rock. You're better than this.



But anyway, this post is about Eight Crazy Nights. One of the most ill-concieved pieces of garbage ever put to film. It's almost bad enough to be a fascinating trainwreck, though probably not worth your time. Actually, why you even reading this? Get out of here.


RT gave this turd 48%?!? You sure you didn't forget a decimal somewhere?

8CN stars an dwarfish, deformed old man who no woman has ever loved, so he cohabitates with his sister as some sort of uncomfortable surrogate.



His name is I-don't-fucking-remember, let's call him Wilbur. He's this relentlessly happy little christmas elf that is also prone to seizures.


Wilbur with Adam's stand-in, don't remember what that douche's name is either

8CN has no problem beating on this guy. There's a scene where a bunch of cruel construction workers negotiate with him to clean out the portapotties. A quarter a toilet, some shit like that. Will society ever learn to respect its most impoverished citizens?! Give him a fucking 20 you cheap assholes and tell him happy holidays.


You got a deal, nice doin' bizness wit' you guys!!

So he's in there and Sandler's stand-in character rushes the portapotty and rams it. It tips and tumbles floor-over-roof down a ditch. Wilber emerges from the stall, steeped in human filth. It drips down his face and he's ready to cry, but before he can properly process this atrocity that has been inflicted upon his person, Sandler offers to help out by hosing him down.



The water quickly freezes, enveloping poor Wilbur into a suspended animation of human feces.

Not to worry, though. Deer save him by melting the ice. They do so, of course, by licking it up. The deer are not shy or bothered with the task of licking a popsicle of human shit, they even grin for the camera, poop bulging out between the cracks in their teeth.

I tried to find an image of it, but I guess the only way would be to order the movie and screencap that scene. And fuck. that. shit.


Instead, have this image. LOL THE DEERS 'R POOPPPIINNGG!!!1

Sandler's Stand-in is an anything-but-sympathetic alcoholic abusive piece of shit. We're meant to feel sorry for him because his parents died which is I guess sad but any sentiment is quickly reversed away by, say, a scene where a random character loses a bet and is forced to eat a jock strap.


Happy Madison even saw fit to copy the Dreamworks Smug ™ facial expression



Sandler does the three voices of the three main characters, the third is of course the sister, whose mewling voice would make you want to throw a brick at the screen if you hadn't run out of them already. There's also some love interest, Sandler's character's offer of hope, because nothing says "I have exorcised the demons of grief and loss" by a two-bit cliched love interest that gives the character's life some structure.


In a moment of clarity, Sandler wrestles away his multiple personalities and turns their faces around. "I AM BETTER THAN THIS!" he bellows to no one, before collapsing into a ball and sobbing

I caught this movie many years ago, I want to say 11 of them, when I was staying at my parents house and sifting through Comcast's On Demand movies. Eight Crazy Nights, that is your fate. $5 bargain bin, or bundled with a bunch of other snooze-fests and to be used as some kind of token prize for whatever tier subscription Comcast wants you to buy.


RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FRIENDS YOU HATE

Fuck you Adam Sandler

BONUS: Through my image searching, I found this

By now I'm sure a lot of you have heard of this. News sites by and large all reported on it as something for those "Let's Players" on youtube. However, there's a whole angle missed, and that's that this applies just as well to reviewers who may need to actually show viewers what they are talking about when they criticize a game.

Frankly, I don't agree with this. Nintendo has come in and said "anyone who uses footage from our games is now an employee, and they can only say certain things about our games". It's true that we're talking about content Nintendo made, in part, but not in entirety. The way the user is playing the game, the specific exact video and sound being shown, is NOT created by Nintendo but by the player using Nintendo's product (aside from cut scenes, of course). To say a reviewer or "let's player" owes Nintendo money for their own recorded playing is no different than Lego demanding money from videos on someone's own Lego projects. Heck, the gameplay is the main thing, and none of these videos are letting viewers actually experience the gameplay for themselves, so how can it be said they come even close to illegally sharing the games?

I think this is a big mistake. Nintendo has built up a lot of good will, but they could lose a big amount of it if they proceed this way.

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-chemists-unboil-eggs.html

Chemists have found a way to un-boil an egg. This might seem familiar to some of you who've played Earthbound. Yes, the Orange Kid was onto something with his research. Also, the "unboil an egg" result is just part of it. The big prize with this protein unfolding enzyme is new angles of attack on cancer. It just goes to show you, Itoi, seemingly "pointless" research could have any number of unexpected dividends later on.

http://pocketmonster.kotaku.com/giving-y...ahernandez

http://consumerist.com/2015/02/03/ups-ha...-delivery/

They're basically just flat out saying that it's too expensive to deliver individual packages to homes, so they're going to start charging more. This may lead to a push by all your favorite online retailers to ship packages to lock boxes located "nearby" where you live. Essentially, the milk man is dead again.

Except, it isn't. We still have USPS, and this is exactly why we need that service. This is exactly what happens when mail delivery is profit driven instead of mandate driven, and it's why the USPS needs to stick around, at least until we get teleportation technology.

This has started to become a problem in my area. Now, I want to be clear. I grew up with a father who rode bikes all the time, such as racing. Outdoorsy fellow in general. Anyway, I'm all for the trend of more adults biking from place to place (even if that's not a realistic possibility for me at the moment). However, the trend around here has been to flagrantly ignore stop signs and just blaze on through. I've had a few situations where I had the right of way, where the crossing street ahead of me had stop signs but not the one I'm on, and someone suddenly cuts across. Stopping in time has been a very close call, and in at least one case the biker looked at me, like I'M the mistaken one. After calming my nerves I went on, but is this really safe? It seems like an invitation for disaster. I try to keep looking, but on at least one of these sorts of roads the surrounding area is full of wooden fences too tall to see over. Any bikes that came blazing there would be impossible to see. I've been forced to slow down significantly around ANY intersection, right of way or not, much to the annoyance of those behind me, because I don't want to take the risk.

The only defense I've heard is about "momentum", that is, they want to keep their forward momentum to "make it across safely". That sounds like nonsense to me. I rode my bike all the time as a kid, and I always stopped. I never had an issue making it across the street from a full-stop, and I was a KID. Here's the issue. If you pull to a stop, then have to work your way back up to speed, drivers will SEE you (assuming you properly looked to make sure the coast was clear before starting across), and they will slow down if you're going slow.

I mean, this is basic physics here. No matter what you think your "rights" are, if no one sees you and they're driving a 2 ton piece of metal at say 35 MPH, they CAN'T stop in time! Agh!

Apparently, it's becoming a huge problem for collector's items in gaming. By all reports, things like Amiibos and the upcoming collector's editions of Majora's Mask 3DS (both the game and the special edition console) were basically sold out the hour they were announced. Huge numbers of eBay sales appeared that day, for items that aren't even out yet. I recall this being an issue when the PS3 came out, so this isn't exactly new, but according to what I've been reading it's become an industry now, massively scaled up from what it used to be. In the past, those pre orders were usually from a handful of individual buyers making a quick buck, but now there's basically companies who's entire business model is "watch news feeds and smash the preorder button when keywords like "Zelda" and "Final Fantasy" show up", and legitimate buyers can't compete.

Anyone run into such issues? For my part, I haven't bought a collector's edition in years. However, Zelda is my teacozy, and I will buy pretty much any special version of that. I've run into issues getting that Skull Kid statuette.

In case you missed it, this is brilliant and hilarious.



I can watch it over and over and laugh myself silly every time. Thank you Adult Swim, Williams Street, and most of all, director Casper Kelly.

Share all your memories of Dreamcast in this thread.

Back in the day, I was a Nintendo-head. I loved N64 with such a loyalty that any competition was met with suspicion. When I heard about the Dreamcast, I didn't like it. N64 was getting its butt kicked by Sony as it was. More competition could only hurt. I remembered the SNES vs. Genesis days with still-fiery acrimony. Why was Sega was always such a dick? "We do, what Nintendon't?" Good sir, remove your hat and coat and let us finish this battle with the fisticuffs.



The most vivid thing I remembered in the early days was the graphics. They were so crisp and smooth, 60fps holy crap. Every time I saw a 3D model move on screen, it was just different than N64. More alive. Sega was always very strong at game design, and they brought us all those lush beautiful games with booming cities and wide open skies of azure. Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, they all seemed so expansive and real.



I was at a kiosk at a GameStop with my friend. "We have GOT to get this system," I told him. But it was only for show. My undying heart would go to Nintendo, I would never betray the kingdom that nurtured my inner-gamer child! But eventually, even I was turned around. September 9th, 1999, here it was.



I loved Sonic Adventure, its ethereal worlds, its booming soundtrack. It brought the same fast-paced eye candy of Genesis. Here was Ecco the Dolphin, I would live my dream of being a marine animal going on adventures with all sorts of creepy underwater creatures. Crazy Taxi kept me occupied for hours, my buddy and I went through all the missions and trials and it was the good old days when you could play a game for hours and never get bored.



I even subscribed to Official Dreamcast Magazine, what a defector! Every month would bring news for games, and even better, a demo cd. Here is how I learned about Jet Set Radio. It's style and sensibility were hip, something Sega was always great at capturing. What an innovative title, you would zip around a city on rocket-skates and tag walls with graffiti. The soundtrack was a mix of j-pop and hip-hop, the perfect background noise for your character's headphones. The game is narrated by Professor K., the DJ of the pirate radio station Jet Set Radio. He tells you like it is and fills you in on the rival gangs. He is perhaps most cartoony of all, large dreadlocks and a prominent nose ring as his puppet jaw flapped around and joked about the city's antics.



Most fascinating of all was it's graphical style: every model had a thick line drawn around its Z axis. It gave the appearance of all its characters being drawn in a comic book come-to-life. You'd have to run from The Man, and got to meet a whole assortment of cool new dudes and dudettes for your spraypainting posse. (Hey, give me a break, I'm trying to capture the late 90s here).



The demo was great, and I bought the title on it's launch date. And it still holds up to this day. Each component – sound, character design, gameplay – blends so well together that you can play it and see how clear a vision its creators must have had. Much kudos to SmileBit for this wonderful game.



I even wrote a review it for my high school paper. I wish I still had it, I would post it here. :D I recall a line of it saying "Those wacky Japanese game devs are at it again!" and someone underlined it with a red marker and wrote down, "Appropriate??" Fair game, phantom editor. Though, it ended up making the cut. I was told later that a token Asian person was present, and asked for counsel. They shrugged and said they weren't personally offended.

Have some songs from the soundtrack!









One game I never played back in the day is Shenmue. Naturally, I ordered it. Today, I got this message...

I assume most if not everyone here reads. Share what you're digging through.

For me, it's the Chroncles of Narnia. It's great writing and appropriate for all ages. I'm not even a big fantasy guy, but I do like Lewis. I read the Screwtape Letters by him a few years ago. That one had great insights into humanity, and you can appreciate it even if you aren't religious. Even just looking through the lens of a religious person is interesting to me.

Chronicles of Narnia are more for entertainment, and it's fun to pick out the religious allegory. Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe was quite overt, yeah yeah, Lion dies for humanity, but the other books don't spell it out as much. Prince Caspian was just OK, but I loved Dawn Treader and Silverchair. I'm working through The Horse and his Boy now, and it's excellent as always.

I wish I had more time to read. I only do it on my lunch breaks now. After Narnia, I want to read Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman.

Weltall, if you post here, you also have to share what you're writing. ;) Okay, you're working on Thoughtful Maro World now, but if you're too busy to write now, what were you writing before? I gotta read one of your novels. What do you recommend? Which one are you most proud of?