GeekHarmony – 5 Minutes to Pudding

We were going to start a band.

Then we realized that while not completely necessary, “talent” was something that should likely be present in order for a successful venture to occur. Then again, it seems to be less and less of a requirement lately. This could be the fear of aging catching up to me, though, where I start hating these young whippersnapper kids and their pop-autotune-crap. Bah humbug.

I begin this way to justify the following guilty statement: I enjoy playing Guitar Hero/Rock Band too much. It’s probably due to the fact that since I don’t have the talent or patience to play a real instrument, it’s far easier to pound on a piece of plastic and pretend that I’m awesome. This can be boiled down to a single equation that companies like ActiVision and Harmonix can appreciate, since it lines their pockets with money:

Laziness + Geeks who love video games and/or Geeks who love music = Profit

Reality is hard.

I picked up the newfangled The Beatles: Rock Band game last week. As a Beatles fan, I’m entertained. As a Rock Band fan, I’m glad they’ve removed the learning curve from the game that all previous music-rhythm things have implemented. Before, they started you off slow, and it got harder as you progressed.

The Beatles : Rock Band throws that formula out the window, and bases songs off of time periods in the Beatles’ career. It’s refreshing to get a little variety, and while none of the songs are exceedingly difficult, some of them were challenging.  (I play Medium, but I’ve heard others say the songs still aren’t bad on higher difficulties).

I’ve found with this game that I need to hire an underling to play the game for me during the Abbey Road recordings, since the animators have drug-induced colorscapes while you’re playing, and I can’t watch those and play the song at the same time.  All in all, love the game, beat it in less than a day. Woo.

For a better, funnier, and more detailed synopsis of the game, see Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation review.

I started thinking about other bands that have had their own featured Rock Band/Guitar Hero games. Guitar Hero: Metallica is completely justified. Metallica songs are perfect for the game, and 90% of geeks living in basements agree that the band is awesome. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith I can’t get behind. I was into them in the 90’s, but even then, it was a fickle thing. Also, Steven Tyler is like a drag queen version of Mick Jagger. Although now, it seems like he’s trying to turn into Geena Davis. And don’t get me started on Guitar Hero: Van Halen. I’m just imagining the next one: Guitar Hero: Songs Your Parents Still Embarrass You By Singing Along To in the Car.

Here are a few games that likely won’t be coming out anytime soon:

Pink Floyd : Rock Band

I love Pink Floyd. But I’m not seeing the ability for families to bond together over the songs like they can with The Beatles. I saw The Wall when I was in junior high. Then watched it repeatedly all throughout high school. (That pretty much explains things, doesn’t it?) Parents may not be comfortable with animators putting marching hammers and flower sex inside of their kid’s video games.

Stay in school, kids.

Besides, “Shine On you Crazy Diamond” is almost 30 minutes long. That makes “Green Grass and High Tides” seem like a picnic. Granted, some songs would be pretty awesome to play, and you could play scenes from The Wizard of Oz behind Dark Side of the Moon tracks, but a completely devoted game likely isn’t in the works.

Guitar Hero: Nickelback

There’d only be one track.

Because all of their songs sound the same.

GET IT?!

Sigh.

Nickelback sucks.

Rock Band: Milli Vanilli

No Microphones required!

*rim shot*

I know, that was both terrible and unnecessary.

It might be a blessing, considering that our landfills are going to be piled with cheap, lead-coated, plastic instruments in the coming years. Just think how bad it will get if they keep releasing all those custom guitar controllers.

I have a Rubbermaid bin full of this crap. That’s also terrible and unnecessary.

I’ll still support these things with my hard-earned money, because like all gamers, I’m both A) loyal and B) feature-stupid. This is the same reason why I might buy Guitar Hero 5, even though most of the songs I don’t care for, just to play “Ring of Fire.” God help me if they ever release “Stairway to Heaven” on a volume. They’ll likely have it be the very last song, and fill the rest with Jonas Brothers and Creed, and I’ll still buy the damn game.

Damn my love of playing pretend.

-darthfenix

Dear Sir,

First, I want to say that I used to watch Chicago Hope back in the day, and liked your character. I don’t think anyone but me remembers you in that. I see that you’ve advanced beyond acting and have been picking up more mainstream directing roles. The Kingdom was a good one. Hancock, not so much. Didn’t see it, but you know, word travels.

Let’s talk about your future. Specifically, the fact that it’s been announced that you’ll be directing something that’s enthralled me since my youth, and something I hold dear to my heart. It’s.. no. Not Battleship. Seriously, I hated that game, I always lost. And it’s beyond me what possible plot a movie like that can have other than what Stephen Colbert proposed. (Feel free to take notes on that one for free.)

No, I’m talking about Dune. Keep in mind that you’ll be the third director working on making this novel into a movie. Since I’m a fan of the idea “the third time’s a charm,” and I will become violent if this book gets a half-assed adaptation again, I’m going to give you a brief synopsis about the other two movies, and some tips on how to avoid the mistakes that they made. Get out a pen.

First Attempt: Dune, 1984

Director: David Lynch

The Good:

First off, I saw this before reading the novel, and when I was a teenager. At the time, my thoughts were focused on “Hey, Paul’s pretty hot, and Patrick Stewart is in this. Badass.” After reading the novel and realizing how awesome it was, I watched the movie again. This is my favorite adaptation. Note that this isn’t the “Special Edition” version that has the narration of the “brief and fairly inaccurate history” of the Dune universe in the beginning, as it seems like it was made for children, and Irulan doing the beginning scene is much better.

90% of the movie is pretty dead-on with the book. The characters are mostly really accurate. The Bene Gesserit are properly mysterious, Paul looks young enough to be a plausible teenager since Kyle McLaughlin didn’t age in the 80’s, and the Fremen are proper Fremen. The stillsuits look accurate to what they’re described, and the casting is pretty freaking good. Patrick Stewart’s voice still comes out when I read Gurney Halleck’s words in the book. Having a lot of the dialogue as internal thoughts also is a good thing, since the book contains a lot of internal monologue on Paul’s part. Also, Sting is wears a loincloth.

Even in a loincloth, I’m more badass than you.

The Bad:

Two words: Weirding Modules.

I don’t understand why Lynch and the writers felt like they needed special devices to explain the “weirding way,” or the fighting style of Paul and his mother. If they were thinking that it may be a stretch to the audience to believe that, then they shouldn’t have made the movie at all. There’s a lot of things in the Dune universe that the uninitiated won’t be able to understand. Case in point: Kwisatz Haderach. The graphics and effects are also horribly dated by now, but back then I’m sure they were amazing. They also left out a few things, like Paul’s first son, and Gurney not having a scar on his face. I looked, it’s not there.

One big thing that pisses me off is the Jessica character is exceptionally emotional when she shouldn’t be. This woman is Bene Gesserit trained and in the book, carries herself with dignity and strength, even when everything around her falls apart. She hides her fears and sucks it up. The actress in Dune who plays her, Francesca Annis, does a reasonable job for most of the movie. But when she and Paul are lost in the desert and escaping the sandworm, she suddenly has these emotional outbursts that are totally out of character. Annoying.

Also, at the end, Paul brings rain to Dune. With his mind. This doesn’t happen in the book, because Paul is not a wizard. The Kwisatz Haderach doesn’t get super powers to do whatever he wants. He just gets to travel to the place that terrifies women. Other than the gynecologist’s office.

The Ugly:

The Guild Navigators. What in the fuck. They shoot lightning out of their mouths, which look like female genitalia, and that’s how people travel through foldspace. Behold, the power of space vaginas.

Space Vagina is also an awesome band name.

Baron Harkonnen is supposed to be evil, an animal, depraved, etc. Lynch, being the evil genius that he is, took things a little bit far in this one. One of the scenes that I still have trouble watching is the introductory scene with the doctors, and the oil, and the… ugh. Another “wtf” moment is where Thufir is told he’s been poisoned by the Baron (accurate, sort of) and needs to milk a cat for the antidote (what in the fuck.)

I think David Lynch needs more hugs.

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars, and a few points in “fucking insane.”

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Second Attempt: Dune, the Sci-Fi Miniseries, 2000 (and also Children of Dune, 2003)

Director: John Harrison (Children of Dune Director: Greg Yaitanes)

The Good:

This is on my Netflix, since I haven’t seen this version in a long time. However, I have recently seen Children of Dune, and it has mostly the same everything, so I think I can still provide decent info. The Dune miniseries was longer than the movie, since they had three episodes to tell the entire story. One would think that they could not go wrong with this kind of power. They would be incorrect.

I remember this having a lot more book detail in there, and I liked most of the casting choices. Some people didn’t return for the CoD miniseries, most notably Jessica (who I like better in the sequel) and Stilgar (who is missing a BEARD. Clean-shaven Fremen Naib. It bothers me.) Paul looks older than he should be, but eh. This one also had the first child of Paul and William Hurt as Duke Leto (which I remember to be pretty neat).

CoD also follows the two sequel books, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, fairly accurately. And it has my favorite montage-death-ending ever at the end of the first part, where Chani gives birth as all of the traitors get knifed, set to peaceful drum music. Oh, and some Scottish kid is Leto II, and while he and his sister are most assuredly not nine years old as in the novel, I don’t seem to mind.

I’ll take two, please. Thank you.

The Bad:

This is where it gets long. First off, the Fremen “blue-within-blue” eyes glowed in the dark. Secondly, they pronounced all the names really differently than I would have expected. Chani (which logically, I would say as CHAN-ee, but they pronounced CHAY-nee) was the biggest one that bothered me. The family names Atreides and Harkonnen were both pronounced weird, the stillsuits looked silly and half the Fremen didn’t wear them all the time while in the desert. A lot of little things made it pretty obnoxiously incorrect as far as the actual culture of Fremen. They also added scenes that were totally not in the book, like Irulan and Feyd-Ruatha hanging out together. They kept calling Paul Mua’dib instead of Usul in CoD, which was irritating coming from Chani. But at least there were no weirding modules.

It seems also that everyone picked a random accent from a hat and went with it. No one matches their families or clans. A good quote on the weird accents comes from raygungirl: “[In CoD] Scottish people will speak in American accents and give birth to Scottish sons who speak with English accents. Heh.” That’s pretty much how it is.

The Ugly:

Most of the costumes were decent. However, I don’t know who thought that the universe would be populated by bad headgear in the future, but they need to be stopped. Susan Sarandon in CoD especially gets the award for “Most Disastrous Use of Flouncy Metal Bits in Fashion.”

A series of unfortunate hats.

Overall Rating: 3/5 stars for both miniseries combined.

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I hope this has been informative, Mr. Berg, and hope that your plans to adapt Dune for a third time are successful. If they aren’t, well, you’ll find out soon enough. I just hope that this doesn’t get turned into another reboot that didn’t need it, all for the sake of Hollywood executives wanting more padding for their money swimming pools. Lord knows we have enough bad ideas going on now as it is. I mean, they’re making board game movies for Christ’s sake… Oh. Right. Good luck with that.

The profits must flow.

-darthfenix

Today, I’m going to talk about one of the most nefarious, underhanded plots regarding food ever. Besides bacon-flavored mayonnaise.

Everyone has a relative or friend that always spends their days “Forwarding-All” the nonsense emails that constantly float around the internet. These range from lame redneck jokes, reports about how margarine is made of plastic, and pictures of “ANIMALS MAKING FUNNY FACES LOL.” Then there’s also lists of “inspirational” quotes like “Take a deep breath.  It calms the mind.” (That came directly from an email with 45 such pearls of wisdom that I got from no less than three relatives.)

Sidenote: If you’re one of those people who needlessly forwards useless information to everyone on your contact list because you think that they’ll appreciate it and love you for it, take a moment to find this icon in your email toolbar:

The “X” stands for Exceptional Email

Then hit the little checkbox next to the email you don’t realize is cancerous, and click that icon. Poof! No more uselessness! Trust me, your friends and relatives will thank you.

Now that all that is out of the way, I’ll continue with the original post.

One of these useless emails turned out to not be so useless, as it contained the One Recipe to Ruin It All, the “Minute Mug Cake.” For those who have never heard of this, the “Minute Mug Cake” has taken on various forms over the years, but the one that was forwarded to me was advertised as a chocolate cake that you could mix inside of a mug, microwave, and poof, instant cake.

Now you understand why this is so dangerous.

Granted, the cake itself doesn’t have a real “cake” texture, it comes out slightly rubberized and sticky. If you really want cake, you’re better off going to a Circle K and picking up a pack of Hostess cupcakes. But if you’re a supreme lazy ass (like myself) and can’t be buggered to actually put on pants, then you’re better off throwing this in a mug and accepting it for what it is: a substance that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike cake.

In my time, I’ve modified the recipe by omitting cocoa powder to make a yellow cake, using Splenda instead of sugar, using applesauce instead of oil (not recommended, in this case, it really does need the oil) and using an egg white instead of a whole egg (also not recommended, it never really cooks right). I’ve also disgraced it and myself further by adding in chocolate chips or a candy bar to the batter before cooking. It’s not designed to be a really sweet cake, so it may be surprising to people who except something akin to Hostess Cupcakes, so the addition of chocolate bits or fruit on top does help. I’ve tried baking it in the oven instead of microwaving it, which sort of works at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, but the cake has a tendency to shrink into itself, and it becomes pretty dry.

This latest attempt last night was the pinnacle of all Minute Cakes. I mixed it inside of a bowl, as I usually do now, since a normal coffee mug tends to overflow over the top and you’d need a soup mug to avoid a giant mess. I made it with Splenda instead of sugar, to make it a bit healthier. And put raspberries on top because, you know, fruit is healthy. Then I murdered my blood sugar by adding chocolate chips in the center and microwaving white chocolate and piping it on top. But it all evens out in the end, right? I mean, it has fruit. And Splenda. It’s healthy. DON’T JUDGE ME.

Health Food

I’m going to go exercise the cake off my ass, but not before I inflict others with the ability to make bad decisions from the comfort of their own home. Have fun.

Minute Mug (or Bowl) Cake

4 tbs flour

4 tbs sugar

2 tbs cocoa powder

1 egg

3 tbs oil

3 tbs milk

1 splash of vanilla (A “splash” is identified as the moment right before you go “Oh shit, that came out really fast.”)

Chocolate chips/small candy bar/nuts/crack*

Mix the dry ingredients into a mug (or bowl) until blended. Add each additional ingredient separately and mix with a whisk until blended each time. At this time, you can add chocolate chips or whatever. Place the mug/bowl in the microwave and cook for 3 min on High. If you used a mug, this is the point where you see some of it come over the sides, which is normal, and it will shrink back down after cooking. Remove it when done, and let it sit for a few minutes. Tip the mug/bowl over a plate to release the cake, and decorate with a fork and your mouth.

*not recommended, the cake is bad enough as is.

- darthfenix

Lisa Frank.

The name should strike fear in the hearts of any child who had to live through the 90’s. Who doesn’t remember the technicolor nightmares that this woman created? Her creations are so girlishly excessive that even the most fem drag queens are repulsed. And the animals. Oh god, the animals. Unicorns, dolphins, kittens, puppies, and any other doe-eyed creature, all smothered in pastels. It’s like a fantasy novel took LSD and raped a barrel of Skittles.

I don’t remember why the conversation came up today, but ever since, the images of my youth haunt me. And being a girl, I was no stranger to this nonsense. I admit here, freely, as part of my redemption:

I was totally in love with this shit.

I had pencils, folders, stationary, stickers, even a goddamn Trapper Keeper. I know, there goes my street cred. Now, it makes my eyes bleed, but back then, it was the best thing ever. The colors were so vibrant, the little cartoon animals so happy. It was the best thing EVER. YOU CANNOT DENY THE KITTENS.

Yes. That is an kitten with a halo and rainbow wings. Because when I think of cute, I think of dead kittens.

What’s even worse, and what I never realized as a child, was that there are actual character names for all of these things. Wikipedia has a list of them for her entry, but I’ll only post a few here.

There’s the “Names that Lisa Frank Girls Will Use for Stripping”

• Rainbow Chaser – a brown horse with purple hooves
• Ballerina Bunnies – three rabbits who dance ballet
• Diva Dragon Fly- A dragonfly
• Bubbles- A kitten who loves to play with bubbles

Then there’s “Sounds Like It Should Be an Adult Film:”

• Bananigans – a monkey with a Rainbow Banana

My personal favorite is this.

• Mauly – the hippo

I’d like to think that it wasn’t Lisa Frank who came up with this one. I’d like to think it was a cynical employee, oppressed by years of drawing giant eyes and over a thousand rainbows into each picture. Someone who knew that hippos were the actually some of the deadliest animals ever when threatened, despite their cuteness in tutus (damn you, Disney!). “Molly” is a safe enough name for something cute… but let’s be different! Let’s name it with a spelling that’s Original. And also ironically imply that the thing could trample your corpse to death in seconds. At least it will look good doing it.

I think the most disheartening thing now is that the “new generation” of Lisa Frank nonsense looks like technicolor Bratz dolls. I guess “cute and cuddly”  is losing ground against “skanky and cheap” in all corners of my childhood. Then again, maybe it’s a form of job training.

Better start picking your names now, girls…

- darthfenix

If this had been a real emergency, I would not have bothered to type anything out, and instead would have left the area blank. Or said something like

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!1″

But it’s only the internet, so how bad can it really be?