By the same token

Good ol' Wil Wheaton discusses video arcades, and if you are close to my age, you'll probably be awash in memories of plunking down quarter after quarter into your favorite video games.

Due mostly to matters of location and age, my video gaming wasn't so much in actual dedicated video arcades, but Chuck E. Cheese, which I guess you could qualify as a video arcade that just happened to sell pizza.

Man, you'd parcel the tokens you got with the pizza very carefully. Was it worth it to drop 2 tokens to play Star Wars in a cockpit instead of playing the upright version for a single token? (Totally.) And what about waiting in line to spend God-only-knows-how-much on Dragon's Lair, where 2 tokens lasted roughly twice as many seconds?

While Ye Olde Pizza Time Theatre may have not been a bona fide arcade, it definitely had the social aspect that Wil talks about. I've never been remotely close to being social, but I played against total strangers without much thought. That's how you learned. Well, you could stand around watching, too, but that wasn't as much fun.

My friend Chris Myers showed me how you could skip ahead on "Crystal Castles" on the first level by going behind the castle and jumping. I'd never have figured that out on my own. That was what we had instead of the Internet: Word of mouth.

My family moved to Tracy in 1985, only a few months after I turned 10. At the time, Tracy was a very small place. The newspaper came out three times a week, which I didn't even know was allowed. We got channels 2 through 13 and Showtime. No MTV. Not for a year or so, anyway. The only bright spot was that Tracy had a Chuck E. Cheese, and it was just down the street.

And when there was a school event, birthday party or Friday night hangout place, you could bet that you'd end up at Chuck E. Cheese. For the first few years I lived there, it was the de facto community center.

The Tracy Chuck E. Cheese is still my favorite. It wasn't the biggest, it didn't have many of the newest games, and the last few years before it closed, it was pretty terrible, but I still smile when I think about it.

I have a vague memory of going there for some school event, maybe fifth-grade graduation or something. We got there when they were opening; they hadn't turned on the video games yet. We were in the arcade area when they did, and it's a sound I'll never forget. Silence, then a giant KA-THUNK, and then the cacophony of all the games cycling through their self-tests and coming to life. Just underneath all that, there was the distinctly metal clinking sound of a token being returned.

I checked the coin return of the machine closest to me and found that it had indeed ejected a token. I was struck by two thoughts:

Did every machine discharge a token? (Darn near, as I recall)

and

Even arcade games liked to drop a deuce first thing in the morning. They were just like people.

Every Friday night, the game room of Chuck E. Cheese was packed with junior high school students, and the drama that they could produce in massive quantities. Relationships were forged and broken in that game room, whether it was winning something for a girl thanks to your Skee-Ball prowess, or as many seemed to do, sharing a kiss or a discrete smoke in the hidey-hole cutout room designed for the preschool set.

I was, not surprisingly, excluded from that whole phenomenon. But I heard about a lot of it Monday morning in Math Lab.

The fun ended when they blocked the entrance to the secret room.

Later in middle school, QuikStop was our after-school stop of choice for a few months. We spent the GNP of Papua New Guinea on "The Real Ghostbusters" game. I usually had the least amount of change, so I'd bow out relatively quickly, but my friends hung in there for a good minute or so longer.

I stopped checking out arcades when all the Mortal Kombat stuff came out. It's not that I didn't like the violence; I just didn't give a crap about mashing buttons to do special moves. Plus, you know, with the home systems doing pretty well, it just didn't seem to make sense.

I still check out the local arcade at the mall, but it's mostly for my son, who loves the bowling games and stuff like that. I think I'd drop dead if I played Dance Dance Revolution, either from embarrassment over my mad dance skillz or a myocardial infarction.

You say "shill" like it's a bad thing...

You may notice if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the movie reviews that there are now links to Amazon.com in case you want to buy the movies and see if they are as I described them.

Theoretically, if someone buys a whole bunch of DVDs, I get a gift certificate for a candy bar or something.

I tried to make them as inobtrusive as possible. If they get really annoying, let me know. I may add other links as I see appropriate, but I promise I won't blog about something solely to put up a link to something insanely expensive (though if you are a video-game freak, check out the link at the bottom).

In the coming weeks, there will be other additions to the old blog. In fact, there's a good chance that you'll be able to get your own official Siftin' swag, because, let's be honest, it's never too early for Christmas shopping.

My son Brody is pitching in. He already came up with a great slogan (I'm totally not kidding; he actually said this): "Choosy mothers choose Jeff."

My little marketer.

Bad Movies From A to Z: When monkey die, everybody cry

King Kong Lives

Sometimes it's not enough to make a remake that no one asked for. Sometimes you have to make a sequel that no one asked for to a remake that no one asked for. Hence, theater screens everywhere were treated to one of the best movies to feature a giant gorilla blood transfusion, "King Kong Lives."

The movie in a nutshell: Kong meets Lady Kong.

The story: We open with a flashback from the 1976 Kong remake where Kong climbs one of the Twin Towers. A trio of copters shoot Kong, and he falls to the ground below. We were to assume that he died.

Atlantic Institute, Georgia, ten years later...

It looks like old Kong is being kept alive by a giant artificial heart. Dr. Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton) tells a group of people that the project isn't working. The heart, she is reminded, cost 7 million dollars, but it took too long to create. He's been comatose too long. If they cut him open now, he'll die. He needs a transfusion.

Meanwhile, in Borneo, Hank Mitchell finds another Kong -- a female. He calls the Atlanta Institute, but when Franklin finds out that it's a lady Kong, she doesn't want it. She doesn't want anything that could upset him during the recuperation. Against Franklin's recommendation, they make a deal with Mitchell.

They bring Lady Kong to the states, and after a brief press conference, they've got her set up to give blood for Kong's operation. Franklin and her team are ready to implant the artificial heart into Kong.

At this point, the DVD refused to play any further, thus sparing me from having to watch the rest of the movie. I slipped it back in its envelope and sent it back to Netflix.

Afterthoughts: I saw this in the theater when it came out, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. In fact, I felt a little relieved that I didn't have to sit through it.

Thus endeth the shortest review so far.

To the moon!

I forgot about the Super Bowl until just after halftime, and the only reason I remembered at all was because I wanted to check out this year's crop of ads.

Some of them I'd seen before (one of the Coke ads, I saw in the theater before "Clerks 2" months ago), and most of the others didn't impress me very much.

I checked out the rest of the ads later on the Intarwebs, and when I saw the FedEx spot, the first thing I thought of was, "Oh man, I have to check Bad Astronomy for this one."

Phil Plait does not disappoint. Check it out. Feel free to read more while you're there. Lots of good stuff. Here's the commercial if you missed it.

Fine, have it your way

I tend to dwell on McDonald's commercials when I wax nostalgic, but I am reminded that Burger King had commercials, too. Whereas McDonald's relies mostly on Ronald McDonald and friends, Burger King uses, well, just about anything they can think of.

Here's the old-school Burger King. I saw him on the side of my local BK a few months ago, and I was quite surprised, given that they seem taken with the creepy Burger King head guy these days. Note the "make me a shake" gag was also used in one of the "Time for Timer" spots ("Could you make me a banana?" "OK, you're a banana.")





The next big push was The Marvelous Magical Burger King, who may look a little familiar these days. This is the Burger King I remember. The kids' meals tended to have magic tricks that I royally sucked at. The MMBK had his own Burger Kingdom, which I suppose was like McDonaldland in its own way. The one that always bugged me was Burger Thing, a burgery face on a wall that talked. I think this is why Thomas the Tank Engine still creeps me out when my son watches it. You be the judge.

Not only was he magical, he was cool. Would you believe (Holy The Search for Animal Chin, Batman!) skateboarding? Oh, believe it.





One thing you could count on in Burger King commercials was seeing lots of familiar faces. A lot of them you saw before they were familiar, but still...

Here are Andrew McCarthy and Elisabeth Shue in a spot that tells the world that Burger King was now selling Pepsi.



As my dad is a staunch Pepsi drinker, we ended up going to Burger King an awful lot once they switched to Pepsi. And I think he was bummed out when they switched back to Coke.

I could tell the story of the time we were in a Burger King parking lot and he took a drink of his Pepsi, tried to suppress a carbonation-induced sneeze and ended up making a very loud "HHHHNNNNNNNNHHHH!" noise, but that would be embarrassing and not very sporting of me.

I could also talk about the time we got to the drive-through and saw that someone had strategically placed a dog turd around the top of the speaker, but that would be gross.

Here are some other famous faces:

Mr. T



Christine Taylor



Sarah Michelle Gellar (if memory serves, McDonald's sued over this spot)



Emmanuel Lewis



And then they had Herb. Herb was supposedly the last person in America who hadn't tried a Whopper, which as David Hofstede points out in his excellent book, What Were They Thinking: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, must have come as a shock to vegetarians.

So the search was on for Herb. If you found him, you could win money. The problem was that initially, no one knew what he looked like. Hilarity ensued. Finally, they showed Herb during a special commercial during the Super Bowl, and he was a stereotypical nerdy looking guy.

In fact, when a classmate drew a scathing Mad Magazine-style parody of our class, I was drawn with a button that read, "Not Herb." It was the only positive thing about my likeness.



By 1992, there was Dan Cortese and BKTeeVee, which looks an awful lot like the stuff being parodied in "Reality Bites."



Of late, Burger King commercials are often just plain odd. This isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't really make me want to buy Burger King.



The so-called "Creepy Burger King" has gotten a lot of grief. I think he's growing on me, though. Not so much that I wanted to buy the Halloween mask, but he doesn't bug me.



This makes me want to go to Burger King even though it's not a real commercial. How about you? (Mildly NSFW; there are birds a-flyin')

Don't it make you wanna scream...

Inspired by Neato Coolville's much superior zombie, here's another less scary zom.



Do your best Vincent Price voice and watch it all embiggened here.

And for you culture fiends, here's a little something I like to call Buttmunch.



Watch it writhe like Tweety Bird on acid here.

It's a family game...

I was going to rip this off of an old VHS tape just so I could talk about it. I even dug it out of the Siftin' archives and got it cued up.

Thankfully, someone has done the hard work for me.

I saw this years ago on a compilation of old Mego toy commercials (it also had the superheroes commercial that featured "The Falcon -- that great black superhero!").

The commercial is for a game called Ball Buster. Being the perennial 12-year-old that I am, I snickered at the name. And I chuckled when the announcer said that the aim of the game is to "bust your opponent's balls."

But it was the bit at the end that really got me. Not surprisingly, this is on my personal list of best commercials ever.



While searching the Intarwebs for more information, I found that the commercial was posted here only a few days ago. Great minds think alike.

It's almost here

I must point out that it is almost National Gorilla Suit Day.

Spread the word and do your duty.

Must...sleep...

We're back from our trip to Las Vegas, and today is my first day back to work. Consequently, I need some sleep before making with the funny.

Worry not; I'll be back before too long.

American Idol, Seattle: Wha-huh?

If I get up to sing in front of people, and in the course of doing so, sound like a dinosaur passing a kidney stone while Freddy Krueger runs his fingernails down a chalkboard and two robots encased in Styrofoam wrestle on bubble wrap in a porta-johnny, I would not be surprised to be told that perhaps singing was not what I should be doing with my life.

That's common sense, isn't it?

I figured that by the sixth season of "American Idol," hopeful candidates would have an idea of what the judges are looking for. Having seen the first episodes so far, I can say that sadly, this is not the case.

Honest to God, I can't fathom why some of these people show up. I haven't decided what the impetus behind dragging themselves to humiliate themselves in front of millions of people could possibly be.

Is it the chance to be on TV?

Do they really think they're that good?

Did they lose a bet?

I know people in this country are encouraged to follow their dreams, but having a dream does not mean that it will come true. I think it's a terrific form of inspiration; something to work toward because you love it.

Dreaming of being, say, a blogging sex symbol is certainly something to shoot for, but is it ever going to happen for me? Not unless they start a three-drink minimum for the Internet.

I admire the chutzpah some contestants have. To a point. I mean, you clearly have to have a pair to say with a straight face that you are a terrific singer when in point of fact, you aren't. By a long shot.

I myself tend to be on the timid side when it comes to confidence about my creative endeavors, so I honestly don't know if people saying they sound like Mariah Carey when they sound like Steve Urkel is a manifestation of overconfidence or a sign of chemical imbalance.

Here are some things I noticed from last night's episode, which featured a bevy of weirdos from planet Zebtar. The first thing is that's it's really hard not to be mean talking about the contestants. I try to root for the underdog, but for the love of God, country and Krispy Kremes, people, give me something to work with.

Brandon Groves -- a repeat offender, this year he came dressed in Uncle Sam-glam attire. He got a very quick "no" from the judges.

Jennifer Chapton (The Hotness) -- Yes, that's her nickname. Not only does she sport that odd cosmetic fashion of wearing lip liner five shades darker than her lipstick (totally The Hotness), but she doesn't take no for an answer, continuing to sing for a year or two after Simon said "no." When spurned by the judges, she broke into a rapid-fire, double-negative-infused speech pattern that you usually hear on "The Jerry Springer Show."

"Opinion don't mean nothin'. Cuz you don't leave no stone unturned."

"He probably listens to that back-country Englishman sheep stuff."

Now as they go into a commercial, Seacrest intones that "Darwin Reedy gets some much-needed support from her mother." The clip shows a platinum blonde in desperate need of a, uh, foundation garment. Nice touch, American Idol.

I really have to stop asking "How bad can they be?" when they show clips before commercial breaks. That's like saying "Well, at least it's not raining" when you're stranded somewhere on a sitcom.

By now I'm feeling bad for laughing at the gag, and now I'm bummed because Amy, the singer with a cold you really wanted to do well, really didn't.

Then we get a montage of stupefyingly craptacular singing, including the "DIE! DIE! DIE!" guy.

And now we meet Darwin Reedy. Her friends call her "Mischa." She has platinum blond hair, black glasses and lipstick so you-can-see-it-from-Pluto-even-though-Pluto-isn't-considered-a-planet-anymore red, it brings to mind the following exchange from "Scrubs":

Elliot: Dr. Cox, does this lipstick make me look like a clown?

Dr. Cox: Why no, Barbie, no ... It makes you look like a prostitute who caters exclusively TO clowns.

The producers either planted her or soiled themselves when they met her.

"I've written a novella, actually, about a singing competition. Actually, there's a character inspired by you, Simon." Wow. Someone who overuses the word "actually" more than I do.

Randy suggests that Mischa bring in her mom, and after she comes in, we see Paula mouth "Oh, my God." This seriously has to be a put-on. After tanking with her rendition of "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls ("Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?"), she offers to try part of "Sweet Home Alabama."

She accepts the rejection, and I get a commercial break.

Well, it can only get better from here, right?

Third time was the charm for Tommy Daniels. He got a yes from all three, plus a shoutout from Randy for his tight 'fro. It is indeed a splendid 'fro. If the Lord had intended for me to have a 'fro, I like to think it would be like that one.

Melissa Stavros -- She goes by her middle name, Carlene, but Simon calls her Melissa. Randy asks her to finish this song: "I like ..."

And BAM, she's off into "Baby Got Back" without hesitation. I admire the hell out of that. For her real audition, she chooses a Christina Aguilera song. No dice.

The Malakars are pretty good.

Oh dear, this is a two-hour episode. I can only last for the first hour. At least in one sitting. Maybe I should just stick with the highlights.

And...

Let's see, Nick Zitzmann. Oh boy. Eeesh. No.

Hmm.

You know, I was going to just stick it out for Day 2, but after they came back, they showed the efforts of new friends Kenneth Briggs and Jonathan Jayne.

"Simon, you can kiss my --- because I do NOT look like a monkey."

(whistling)

Well, at least it's not raining.

YouTube Monday

I'm still just too darn tired of late to seriously pontificate on pieces of pop culture, so I offer you one of my favorite commercials for that rainy-day recess favorite.

"Pret-ty sneaky, sis."

Glad about Mad

My friend Karyne alerted me to this post on Boing Boing. You can now buy every issue (up through 2005 or 2006 -- I can't tell for sure) of Mad Magazine on DVD.

A few years back, I got a similar collection on 7 CDs, and that went up through December 1998, I think. I'd have to look for sure, and my stupid self packed it in a box that went into storage when we moved. Meh.

This new collection features all the mags in PDF format. The first collection had a neat feature where you could actually fold the fold-in at the end of each issue. I'm guessing you can't do that with the new one, but still, being able to read over 50 years of Mad Magazine is still pretty awesome.

This collection is from the folks at GIT Corp., who also have a handful of Marvel Comics DVD collections, with more forthcoming. I got one a few years ago, the Marvel Comic Book Library, which featured the first 10 adventures of 10 Marvel characters. It was pretty cool, and it's nice to have comics all in one place without taking up tons of room in long boxes.

I still prefer to read the actual comic books (you can't beat that old comic book smell), but it's still pretty handy. I haven't tried out any of the larger collections, but given that I'd never have the money to buy the full run of say, the Fantastic Four, it's an inexpensive way to read some classic books.

Now if only DC Comics would do something similar...

Number 2 with a bullet

I have weird dreams. I'm used to it. I've been skateboarding with Barney Rubble at my grandma's house, been chased through a TG&Y store by Jason Voorhees (all I could see over the aisles were his hockey mask and the long bars welded to the carts to keep you from taking them from the store) and I've fallen from an airplane without waking up before landing.

And no, I didn't die.

A few months ago, I woke up from a dream in which I had been watching a musical episode of "Scrubs." This is fairly common, dreaming about watching episodes of shows that don't exist.

When I told my wife about the dream, it seemed just odd. It kind of came out of nowhere.

It wasn't until a little later that I found out that coming soon to NBC is (yes, you guessed it), a musical episode of "Scrubs."

Why I couldn't have dreamt of winning lottery numbers, I don't know, but here's a little taste of what's in store for viewers.

2007 is already off to a good start

The 365 Days Project returns!

A few years ago, this cool project served up one mp3 a day for a whole year. These mp3s were from sources all around the world -- and a few from even farther away.

You can check out 2003's archive here. This year, the offerings may include more than one mp3 -- even full albums. If it's anything like the first one, there are sure to be some absolute treasures here that if you didn't hear them, you wouldn't believe existed.

And sometimes even after hearing some of them, you still can't believe it. It's a tremendously fascinating effort; I really can't say enough nice things about it. It's a reminder of what rich historical documents old recordings can be.

And to kick off everything, ringmaster Otis Fodder is offering two full versions of items that were excerpted last time around. And wouldn't you just know it, one of them was my favorite, and now I get to hear the whole thing.

Go check it out.

Happy New Year.

New Year's Day.

A time when millions across the world slowly raise their heads -- a great effort given that they feel as though they are composed primarily of lead -- and regale the new year with a hearty, "Oh, dear God, I think I just threw up a file cabinet."

A time when you notice every sound the new morning has to bring, like the birds outside that JUST WILL NOT SHUT UP.

Out of deference to those of you who are trying to hide lampshade indentations with some makeup or are wondering exactly whose clothes you're wearing, I'm trying to type as quietly as I can.

For those of you who didn't enjoy late-night festivities because you either had to work the next morning or your name is possibly on a special list at your local police department, try to be supportive.

Laugh at them quietly.

Happy birthday to The Man

Just wanted to give a birthday shoutout to Stan Lee. I've always been more of a DC Comics guy than Marvel, but Stan the Man has been an influence on me nonetheless.

In fact, I'd have to say that he's one of two influences on my writing voice. The other is Judy Blume. You probably won't detect either one reading this blog, but they're there, I assure you.

Happy birthday, Stan.

Ho, ho, ho, pimp...

Christmas time is (almost) here

You know that tingling sensation you get when you lick a fresh 9-volt Duracell? Imagine that feeling in your stomach. That's how waiting for Christmas felt like when I was a kid.

I don't know if I ever got any sleep on Christmas Eve. Back in the days before insomnia, I could count on two sleepless nights a year: the night before the first day of school and Christmas Eve. The difference: Christmas Eve usually didn't involve a lot of thinking, "Oh God, what are they going to do to me this year?"

Instead, it was all about potential; the unknown. When you're a kid, you don't think about budgets or supply and demand; it's all about the magical list you penned faster than any homework assignment could ever be done, even at gunpoint. It's the time that you simply ask for what you want without thinking about how much things cost or how unlikely it is that you'd get it.

It was almost like magic.

Well, magic fueled by a week of Christmas specials on CBS, with the bongo-fueled special presentation intro.



My brother and I -- when we shared a room -- would talk about what we thought we were going to get until we finally fell asleep despite all the kid-adrenaline. And after a few hours of sleep, we were wide awake again, eager to head out into the living room to see what Santa brought us.

In what we assumed was a cost-saving move to offset the expenses of toy production, Santa always wrapped our presents in layers of tissue paper. You could just see through it just enough to have an idea of what the present was.

Our stockings would be bulging with candy, socks and for some reason I never quite understood, a tiny bottle of after-shave. Maybe Santa was trying to tell us that we stunk. I don't know.

My brother was always trying to get out there before anyone else.

"I'm gonna go see what we got!" he'd whisper.

Then I'd remind him that our parents wouldn't be up for another 2 or 3 hours and he'd scowl at me.

I still remember the year we got the Hall of Justice from the Super Powers Collection. It was the one toy we wanted the most. We had most of the Super Powers figures already, and now we'd have a cool playset for them to hang out in.

When opened, the Hall of Justice had a jail cell (with a trap door) for any villains who meandered by, a meeting table for four (you know Superman always got first dibs on a chair) and an elevator that led to a landing pad for the Supermobile (or if you had a good imagination, Wonder Woman's invisible jet).

And if that wasn't cool enough, when we opened the box, out came the last three figures we needed.

A Christmas miracle.

So now I'm gearing up to celebrate Christmas with my own family, which means one non-TNT viewing of "A Christmas Story," complaining that they showed all the Christmas specials too early again and some serious eating.

But the thing I'm looking most forward to is watching my son open his presents. I can't wait to see his face when he sees what he got.

In fact, I probably won't be able to sleep on Christmas Eve because of it.

Random thought

At what point exactly did "American Pie" decide to challenge National Lampoon for the throne of Once (Arguably) Funny Franchise Now Offering Crappy Direct-To-DVD Movies?

And Eugene Levy, why? Really. Why?

Pac-Man fever

I think it will be hard to explain to my son when he gets older just how popular Pac-Man was in its heyday.

You had your Pac-Man cereal, which was essentially sweetened Kix with marshmallow bits. The Star Wars cereal a few years back was similar to Pac-Man cereal -- or at least was close enough for my brother and me. After it had been out for a while, General Mills made a concession to all the Ms. Pac-Man fans out there and added marshmallows with a "shocking pink bow."

I don't know that I was as excited as this commercial would expect you to be, but it was still pretty good.



There was, of course, a Pac-Man cartoon, which featured Marty Ingalls as the voice of our hero. I'd love to say that it was a groundbreaking cartoon worthy of many repeated viewings, but, well, it was teamed up with the Rubik the Amazing Cube cartoon. That right there shows you the state of Saturday morning cartoons in the mid-80s. Cool song, tho.



Yes, there was Pac-Man pasta. Another brief offering from Chef Boyardee, I don't know if I ever got this as a kid. The only Chef Boyardee product that I really liked was UFOs, which had giant cheese ravioli motherships along with the regular pasta spacecraft. But if you ever wanted to see a cartoon character based on a video game shill for bland pasta, hey, all you have to do is click play.



"Pac-Man Fever" by Buckner and Garcia, was a hit single that was the first big indicator of the yellow one's fame. Imagine someone writing a song about Monopoly.



My favorite Pac-Man tie-in was the board game, which you can read about in great detail at X-Entertainment.

And I've already mentioned the cool Super Pac-Man scratch-off cards.

The hardest part, though, will be explaining how a game this popular was one of the worst games for the Atari 2600.