Speaking Of Trophies…
Eric J | Friday, September 4, 2009 10:45amWhy I Like The Trophies
Eric J | Tuesday, September 1, 2009 8:01pmOn August 21 at 6:05pm, Anthony Liccardello wrote:
Eric J | Saturday, August 29, 2009 11:29amA Call For Community (Who Needs An Arms Race When You Have A Fanbase?)
Eric J | Thursday, July 30, 2009 4:00pmBachelor Life: Eating Good Is EASY!
Eric J | Wednesday, July 22, 2009 6:19pmI originally sat down to write a new feature I’d like to start called Things I Like, wherein I’d talk about things I like and why, but I was too hungry to start writing about that. I guess I figured that, instead, I should write about what I was eating. Because I’m a bachelor. And can’t cook.
I love to try new things and would be glad to eat just about anything someone prepares for me, but preparing things for myself? Nah, I’ll just have some cereal. It’s gotten to the point where, when I’m grocery shopping, I’ll pick up easy to prepare things – microwavable foods, salads in a bag, and the sort – to pretend like I can cook. When I do cook, it usually looks something like this:
What is this delicacy?
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Taste-Off!: Jif Extra Crunchy v. Skippy Super Chunk
Eric J | Sunday, July 12, 2009 4:27pmGoing back through what little I have written here, I realize that I failed to mention my extreme love of peanut butter since the consum’d! crash of 2008. I made mention of it in its original form, but I guess it slipped my mind when I revived it. These things happen, and now is not just as good a time as any to mention it, but the best time. If Reese’s puts anything new out, I have to try it. I’m like this with a lot of food, but Reese’s especially.
Increasingly more difficult to find over the past few years is Reese’s peanut butter in a jar, like Skippy and Jif. And Peter Pan, but that shit blows. I contacted Hershey’s customer service to see what the story was and they wrote back (much different than my first attempt to contact them for I don’t remember what; again, the crash):
I’m sorry you are having trouble finding REESE’S creamy peanut butter in your area. This product is available nationwide; however, it is up to each retailer to determine the items they will carry. For example, baking items may only be stocked during traditional baking seasons and snack size bags are often only stocked during the Halloween and Back-to-School season even though these products are available year round. Your store manager may be willing to order this product upon request.Our sales records indicate that the following store(s) scanned this product in the last 3 months…
Thanks Natalie! I appreciate this and you’ve restored Hershey’s Online Customer Service to “respectable” – up from “not so much!” The grocers listed unfortunately are only kind of around me, so I continue to settle for Jif, but why? I’m not a choosy mom (!), so why not Skippy?
With Reese’s out of the equation, I ask myself: Jif or Skippy?
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A Non-Review Of Bionic Commando: An Introspective Dissection Of Why I’m Torn In Two
Eric J | Thursday, July 2, 2009 5:54pmLet me tell you about the man I met when I was still young…
Where it all began.
I was told about Bionic Commando during a before-school latchkey session when I was in second grade. A Ginger Kid whose name I forget told me about it, and how you couldn’t jump and you had to use an arm to move across the level. He told me it was really fun, but really hard (that’s what she said). I was still trying to wrap my head around not being able to jump. I never forgot his retelling of the games’ mechanics, but I did forget the title. Some weeks – possibly months- had passed, and on some random trip to Toys R Us with my parents, I saw the video game cover pictured above and know that that was it.
Now, if you weren’t around for this phase of Toys R Us’ history, you should know how their video game aisles worked. They basically had each console on their own wall. The box art was displayed on a card that you could flip over to see the back of the box. Underneath these cards were flaps that held sheets of paper listing the title of the game, its price, and a barcode for that game. The number of sheets of paper usually indicated the number of copies that store had in at the time. Sometimes it would be off, and you’d grab a sheet to find they didn’t have any. Sometimes eager kids, such as myself, would see there weren’t any slips, but just had to know that there weren’t any more copies in, so we’d have our parents ask if it was really out of stock. To a seven year old version of myself, it was extremely important that I tell my parents loudly and excitedly that that was the game I’d been looking for (!), that it was (based off the number of sheets left) the last copy (!!), and that it was (this one was for you, mom) on sale (!!!). One – or any combination – of those three things must’ve really sunk in with them (it could have also been the sound of desperation in my voice), and for as much as I played the game that night, that summer, and the years following, I never did finish it. I loved the game sooo much that it never bothered me that I’d get to the last level, but just couldn’t get passed it. It’s still one of my top three favorite games of all time, despite this fact.
Some odd years ago, I was at my friend James’ house, and he was showing me the Lost Planet
Forgive me Brian Crecente, I stole this picture from this article.
THIS is what we were given a couple years after James’ prediction: Nathan “Rad” Spencer. In dreads. With a mechanical…sausage…arm. I can’t say I was thrilled by this image, but the notion that the swing mechanic worked kept me excited about this game.
As an entertaining source for information, I listen to a lot of industry related podcasts. A lot! And when I learned there was a Bionic Commando podcast – Top Secret (as it’s known as in Japan) anyway, I gave it a whirl. Listening to Capcom producer Ben Judd talk about his and GRIN’s (the developer of the recently released sequel) love of the original gave me the utmost faith that the project was in capable, or at least caring, hands. Any qualms I might’ve had regarding this sequel were put at ease listening to the crew talk about the development, but then(!), in early 2008, they announced Bionic Commando: ReArmed (“re-armed”, not the proctological term “rear med”) – the XBLA/PSN/Steam remake of the original NES title with co-op and a bunch of other extras. When this came out in August of last year, I was both ecstatic (because the game is fan-fucking-tastic!) and convinced that the sequel would be a quality product. Fast-forward to about a month ago, when the reviews started to trickle in on this then soon-to-be-released sequel, and much excitement and anticipation was brought to a halt. Reviews scores were mixed at best, with strong praise coming from Play Magazine (par for Dave Halverson), kind words coming from IGN’s Jeff Haynes, and a kind of gentle bashing coming from everyone else. What the crap happened?! Though personal interest had waned, I had to find out first-hand what the deal was.
Though probably not completely necessary, I feel I had to explain my love of the original and a brief and semi-personal history of the sequel’s development before I moved into what I believe to be the meat of this non-review: an examination of why I think the sequel is worthy of its title; my justifications for forgiving the frustrations that the latest Bionic Commando brings.
That crap about Toys R Us was just informative filler.
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Taste-Off!: A Tale Of Two Cookies. Pahtnah.
Eric J | Tuesday, May 19, 2009 7:08pmAs the tease may have indicated, there was a showdown at high noon – right in my mouth! – between Nabisco’s perennial favorite chocolate sandwich cookie, the Oreo, and Safeway’s cheaper knock-off, the Tuxedos. Clearly, Oreo has the bigger gun, but does it have the quickest draw in the west to take down this wannabe? Let me just say this: Oreo don’t wanna see Tuxedos‘ hand where its hip be at.
I guess I will just reuse this image. Cope.
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Don’t tease me, bro!
Eric J | Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:12pmI’ve been trying really really hard to not tease anything I have planned to write here because usually when I do, it takes forever for me to post it. Today, I’m making an exception because this one is so close, I can taste it(!):
Or rather, I already have.
Number One
Eric J | Saturday, April 4, 2009 1:48pm2. Celebrating Life Through Music
Eric J | Friday, March 27, 2009 8:17pm5… 4… 3? (or The Arts Of Casual Swears, Third Time’s A Charms, and First Impressions)
Eric J | Monday, March 23, 2009 9:39pmWell that didn’t last long at all. I will now jam two posts into one and you won’t know any different!
5. Ben Folds – Way to Normal
It’s been a while, Mr. Folds. Your last album was really bland and lacking in the enjoyability department (minus that one song that got way too much play in that Hilton commercial). And that’s fine; bills don’t pay themselves, but there was really no feeling behind the sell out.
Way To Normal, on the other hand, is just what the doctor ordered. The x-rays of your head you received in the first song are probably the ones that showed you how to clear up what was wrong and helped you to not make an album like Songs for Silverman
It also makes me wonder if you’re actually saying “ex-rays,” as the whole album really makes it a point to put every spin on a break up that you could. Anger, loneliness, bitterness, sadness, and humor… that’s the Ben Folds I came to listen to, not the sad bastard that bored us on Silverman. And this was exactly what I needed in that moment – all my core feelings on fallen relationships to be covered with piano and accessibly quirky pop sensibilities.
Thanks! And thanks for so casually throwing out swears, it really makes the whole album conversational. You’re not singing at me, you’re singing with me. I appreciate that greatly.
4. The Stills – Oceans Will Rise
The Stills have been pretty consistent with their three releases thus far. I will say, however, that it took me listening to Oceans Will Rise to go back and listen to Without Feathers
What The Stills have created with Oceans Will Rise is their best work, culling from the best parts of their two previous albums, while also showing us they’ve grown as artists and matured as people. It’s definitely not as catchy as Logic Will Break Your Heart
That was terrible.
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6. (or Guess I’m Pretty Lucky)
Eric J | Saturday, March 21, 2009 5:35pmMy goal here (let’s see how well this goes) is, of the remaining six, to give all the the new artists (totaling four left) I’d heard last year their own post.
SPOILER ALERT: The next post will feature two artists. This one is dedicated to Cloud Cult.
6. Cloud Cult – Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)
In what I would consider to be a completely random circumstance, I met someone back in November who unknowingly and unexpectedly changed my life. They recommended four new artists/bands for me to check out, and three of them make up the rest of this list (the fourth would have had made the Top 10 (+5) List had their album
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8 and 7. (or goddamn “Highly Suspicious”)
Eric J | Thursday, March 12, 2009 7:01pmLet’s just cut to the chase, shall we?
8. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
In what is definitely the worst analogy I can think of, At Mount Zoomer is Wolf Parade’s Toxicity
Unluckily for Wolf Parade, I just compared them to System Of A Down.
Sorry, Serj!
7. My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
My Morning Jacket has evaded my ears for nearly ten years. There was a period of time around the turn of the century (the newer one, not the older one that people often refer to when they say that) when bands with three or more words in their names whose sounds were all indistinguishable from each other were really starting to emerge from all over the place to win the hearts of so many post-grunge pop-punk skater kids. I couldn’t keep track of them, and I couldn’t care less about one more.
I wish I would’ve cared about My Morning Jacket back then, I could’ve used an album like The Tennessee Fire
I’m afraid I’ll have to continue this even later; I’m in dire need of a PBJ, you see?
