Fear and Loathing in Mushroom Kingdom

Posted on By Wil

Huntersmario
Joystiq is one of my daily reads, and a frequent source for my Propeller links.

While skipping around the Internets like a pixie this morning, I landed at Joystiq, where I was rewarded with this:

"We had two bags of 1-up mushrooms, seventy-five pellets of fire
flower, five sheets of high-powered stars, a saltshaker half-full of
raccoon tail, a whole galaxy of multi-colored turtle shells, hammers,
POW blocks, laughers… Not that we needed all that for the trip, but
once you get locked into a serious power-up collection, the tendency is
to push it as far as you can."

You HST junkies will enjoy the additional text at Joystiq, which cites PixelGen, which cites ircimages.

Update: Livejournal user steelcaver says:

I’m constantly amused by the randomised collection of
six-degree-separated things that surface on the internet; in this case,
a page where an actor who once worked on a TV show that I watched is
showing pictures based on a video game I used to play, created by some
kid with an computer and image editing software. 

steelcave then discovers that:

[info]thornleaf has located the image’s original source, on suzyage4’s DeviantArt pages.  The image displayed has been replaced with the original version from her pages. 

Six degrees, indeed.

in which blue light special is adapted for comics

Posted on By Wil

PegsI’m working like crazy on actual fiction writing, so my time and motivation for posting in my blog is a bit lacking, as I immerse myself in a dystopian future Los Angeles which is hopefully unique from all the other dystopian future Los Angeles (Los Angelesses? Los Angeli?) that we’re all familiar with.

However, I’m taking a break from all that to point you, dear reader, to this adorable adaptation of Blue Light Special that I helped write for a comic called Blogjam.

I quite enjoy it, and the archives are absolutely worth digging through; there’s some very funny stuff in there. Best of all, regular people like you and me can submit stories from our totally awesome lives in the hopes that they’ll be adapted into future strips.

it’s a good day to be a gamer

Posted on By Wil

A Florida judge recommends that Jack Thompson be found guilty of being
a complete and utter douche 27 of 31 counts of misconduct.

Tunis made 21 recommendations of guilt in relation to Thompson’s participation in Strickland vs. Sony,
an Alabama case in which the anti-game attorney represented the
families of two police officers and a police dispatcher slain by
18-year-old Grand Theft Auto player Devin Moore. Tunis also recommended
that Thompson be found guilty on four out of five counts relating to
his 2006 attempt to have Rockstar’s Bully declared a public nuisance in
a case before Miami Judge Ronald Friedman. An additional two guilty
counts stemmed from a non-video game matter."

While we wait breathlessly for the verdict to be delivered, we can play the Penny Arcade game! On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness is finally available for Mac, PC, Linux and from Xbox Live Arcade.

Just because I haven’t packed enough pure awesome into one post: Harmonix announced yesterday that next week’s Rock Band DLC will be the entire album The Cars, from the Cars. Time to watch Fast Times — well, part of Fast Times — over and over again in, uh, preparation.

in praise of the scenic route

Posted on By Wil

The 101 between Ventura and Salinas is one of the most beautiful stretches of highway I’ve ever driven (and I’ve driven a lot of them). The highway winds up to San Francisco from Los Angeles, along the coast in places, but mostly inland through soft rolling foothills and quiet farming valleys. You’ll see everything from vineyards to oil fields on the drive, and though it takes about an hour longer than the more boring but direct I-5, if you’re not in a hurry, it’s worth the extra time.

This trip provided me with some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever experienced on the 101: the grass on the foothills is golden, creating an inviting backdrop for splashes of color thrown across it by wild flowers. There was orange from poppies, yellow and green from wild mustard flowers, bright purple from lavender, and occasional bursts of bright green from grass that hadn’t gotten the memo about dying off for summer. Around it all were gnarled oak trees, providing shade for grazing cattle and horses.

Once I got north of Soledad, towering Eucalyptus trees — sixty feet tall, it seemed — stood guard over vast green fields of lettuce and celery, as if the foothills had been somehow pushed back by farmers decades or even a century ago. Near Monterey, a heavy blanket of fog did its best to come inland, as coastal mountains held it back.

I saw all of this under clear blue skies as I made my way up to San Jose, accompanied by Dimension X on m iPod (an odd but wonderful soundtrack, indeed). I was tired and road weary when I finally pulled into the hotel parking garage nearly seven hours after I’d left my house, but it was entirely worth it.

that’s no moon . . .

Posted on By Wil

Plaid Stallions is one of my favorite stops on the Internets for Gen X nostalgia. While Propelling this morning, I came across their scans of Kenner’s 1978 Star Wars toy catalog.

If you’ve read The Trade from Just a Geek and wondered just how awesome my Death Star play set was, take a look at Plaid Stallions’ Death Star play set page.

Once you’ve fully appreciated how awesome and magnificent the Death Star play set is, scroll to the bottom of the vehicle page and take a look at the Landspeeder.

Then, if you will, join me in sending a nasty curse word back in time to the little bastard who convinced eight year-old me that it it was an equitable trade.