four out of five stars.

yeah, sure i gave my overall opinion early. the fact is, anyone who is at all interested in Final Fantasy will want to see this. everyone who isn't won't.

i am a relatively late adopter of FF, but the games i've played have totally won me over, and i'm now working on completing them all. VII is certainly one of the best, and is still the fan favorite nearly a decade after its release. hence the movie.



the extremely short version of the plot: this movie picks up soon after the end of the FFVII game plot. a group of extra-feminine baby Sephiroths want to reunite all those who share his "bloodline" and bring Seph back to life in the process, then take over the world and whatnot. Cloud is technically one of them, so he becomes involved and must stop the madness.



the real joy--and point--of this movie is seeing our beloved characters in action again. you'll see all the main players: Cloud, Aeris, Barret, Tifa, Vincent, Red, the Cait Sith cat thing, Cid, that brat Yuffie, and bad guys like Reno and Rude, yo.



and, yes, Sephiroth.



most of you will be happy to know that this movie is about 80% action. It does not rely on the story and dialog as much as you'd think an RPG movie would. there are bike chases, plenty of sword fighting, and a form of Bahamut is summoned to attack the city.



the graphics are amazing--realistic without straying far from how we have always pictured the characters and world. and the soundtrack... was... awesome. the familiar, wonderful, semi-cheesey guitar music shows up. they also made some interesting choices with the music, placing enchanting piano during a fight scene and including a very charming cell phone ring.



i loved it. the plot may have been a little thin, but i think they did justice to the series. i'll be buying it and watching it many times. looks like it will be released on DVD in the US on Nov 29 and will also be available on UMD.

all images swiped from Advent Children.net. go here if you have any interest in the movie whatsoever. they have everything, including some gorgeous wallpaper.

Top 50 Science Fiction Television Shows of All Time - Boston.com

here's another list we can argue about! the top shows are pretty predictable, but the link puts you directly in the most pleasant part of the list.

Halden Johnson Dot Net, a good Canadian geek blog, drew my attention to it.

Coming out, yet another volume of

I Love the 80's.

the twist this season: its " I Love the 80's 3D "



This makes me happy. The 3 d glasses get a to have a millennium comeback!

I don't really understand this Super Mario Alternate Universe.

Hey guys... I'm a single girl, and thus I must go to movies all by my single self. That, of course, has nothing to do with my review of Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride.

I enjoyed Nightmare Before Christmas, plot, characters, and creation. Perhaps not as much as the fanatic would, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The Corpse Bride was also entertaining, but for an entirely different reason. This time around I found the animation more appealing than the actual story line.

While watching, I discovered that I was appreciating the movie more from an artistic point of view as opposed to that of someone out to see good mindless entertainment. Now, I'm not saying the plot was horrible by any means; just a tad dull. There were a few witty moments, and the voices were done wonderfully. But I'm glad the movie was only an hour and seventeen minutes long, for if it had been any longer my attention span wouldn't have lasted.

But yes, animation, animation, animation. The wedding dresses were beautifully lifelike, and there were even motherly body parts (one mother in particular) that were very much like the real things. I'll leave that for you to discover all on your own.

Favorite part? The dead dog was a highlight. I will admit, though, that my musical side got the best of me. I loved watching Victor play the piano. They animated it to look as though he was actually playing the correct notes, which gets top marks in my book. Not to mention the fact that the music suited the overall mood of the movie.

All in all, I'd watch it again as long as I could view from the comfort of my living room. Great Tim Burton creation, just in need of a bit more excitement as far as storytelling is concerned.

the Road Runner was finally caught by the Coyote .

Fly Guy

Artistic internet gaming at its finest.

Optical Illusiony-type-thing #3


the file name is the only way i have a clue what this is. i pretend i am not jealous of the 95% of the population that can do these stupid things, but it pains me deep inside. every day.



oh. i had a point with that vague Mallrats reference. Willam, aka Ethan Suplee, stars alongside the fabulous Jason Lee in the new show "My Name is Earl". it wasn't as full of insane laughs as i had hoped, but it was very good. i will not demand that you all watch it, but it is what i secretly desire. i am full of secret feelings that will no longer be secret upon posting this. i fear "Earl" will just be canceled because people don't tend to watch GOOD tv shows. enjoy it while it lasts. i might take my good boob out for you.

CAUTION: The following flash animations, while hilarious in randomness and total chaos, continue some fowl language, insane animation, and realllly baaad voice acting. View at your own risk.

Suspend any idea of coherent understanding for a moment. This should be easy, as many of us walk around all day in just such a state of mind. I'm about to share with you the epic story of Arfenhouse.

Let's start in 1998, when an online personality named Misteroo joined Disaster Labs, a group of individuals dedicated to the design and production of games and flash animations.



Misteroo shares the story of one of his earliest projects on the Disaster Labs website:

"Through much frustration of finding so many horrible OHRRPGCE games out there in the mainstream, I grew tired of the lack of quality and effort, and nearly threw up when I finally played Magnus. At that point I knew that it was time to create the most ridiculous and idiotic game possible, and created Arfenhouse."

The game took all of thirty minutes to make and runs at a play time of 3 minutes. The animation sucks. The voice acting sucks. The story's about as deep as an inflatable kiddy pool. For all intents and purposes, Misteroo succeeded in creating the ultimate tool of protest (play the flash version of Arfenhouse here).

In the game you play as Housemaster, a slice of bread with the maturity level of an 13-year-old. Online. Spouting phrases like 'sux0r' and 'lololol' and 'wtfstfuomg!' Housemaster must journey across the single-room mansion known as Arfenhouse to challenge the Evil Kitty, and along the way battles swarms of frogs, birds and turnips.

Yes, I said turnips.

The irony, of course, is that the Arfenhouse project spawned three more sequels of increasing length but equivalent lunacy.

The crown jewel came with the creation of Arfenhouse: The Movie. The entire Disaster Labs team scripted the flash animation and released its mighty wrath on April 21, 2002. People watched and laughed at the knowledge they had no f*^)!$g idea what was going on in the film.



The film was later followed up with arfenhouse teh movie too, which was as crazy on a larger scale. The same running gags and jokes continued.

This was followed by AHTM3 Trailer: Kill Billy, a glorious Kill Bill parody featuring the Arfenhouse cast. Currently Misteroo is slowly progressing on the official AHTM4 flash animation, which will likely have no Kill Bill connection.



For extra credit, check out 8-Bitch5: EvilOnTheAttack, a glorious parody in the arfenhouse vein of people who prosper off of others successes by reproducing quality content in a rather poor fashion. To quote Misteroo:

"Once upon a time there was a guy who had a great idea. Then a bunch of people copied it. The tale is told again and again and again to the point that originality holds little sway over the masses as they all want to see their favorite characters kill each other for no reason. It doesn't matter if the result is good or bad--it's got character inserts so it's got to be good by default, right? You don't even need voiceactors who know their lines, and the microphones can be stolen from the McDonald's drivethrough guy, and all of the graphics can just be copied and pasted from some sprite website within a few minutes, and the script can be either stolen from something else you liked or just the Simpsons--it's still good!!!!!!! RIGHT!?!? HERE, HAVE A FREE HEADACHE!"

IGN: TGS 2005: Revolution Teaser Video

the wacky remote controller in action.

In the spirit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a popular celeb wears this shirt.



I thought I'd spare you the identity, but if you just need to know, here you go

Mr T lands his own reality show~!

god, i love TV Land.

First of all: GO HERE NOW!

Recently, we've had a bit of a dilemma on our hands here at E301. It came in the form of a certain Muppet's validity being questioned. Because I am a teacher, I am here to give you all a little lesson GONZO 101 style.

So when you hear the Muppet theme start to play, push in your chair, walk to the circle area, find a dot on the floor, and put your bottom on it! Fold your legs, and remember to raise your hand if you have something you'd like to share!

Now, everyone take out your Wikipedia, and open to page 504.

Gonzo (Muppet)
The Great Gonzo

Gonzo, Gonzo the Great, or The Great Gonzo is a puppet character, one of Jim Henson's Muppets. He is performed by Dave Goelz.

Gonzo, to say the least, is weird. He is blue, bug-eyed, and has a long hooked nose. On The Muppet Show he performed as a performance artist, stuntman and daredevil under the name "The Great Gonzo" (or "Gonzo the Great"). He takes pride in his iconoclasm (SISTAH!), all the while romantically pursuing Camilla the chicken.

A running gag related to Gonzo is that it's not clear what species he is supposed to be, though some say he resembles a buzzard. In the film The Great Muppet Caper, he is shipped to England in a crate labeled "Whatever" (while Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are respectively labeled "Frog" and "Bear"). In Muppets From Space it is revealed that Gonzo is an alien. It is not clear whether this is to be considered a canonical statement of Gonzo's origins. In Muppet Babies Gonzo (voice of Russi Taylor) was simply referred to as a "weirdo." John Cleese, in his appearance on the show, referred to him as "the ugly, disgusting little blue creature who catches cannonballs." He has referred to himself as a "whatever," resigned to ignorance of his actual species.

Originally in the first season of The Muppet Show the character was underplayed with a permanently sleepy look. The producers noticed that he worked better in a more energetic form and modified the eyes to have movable eyelids which helped make him a more active character. As such, he became one of the principal characters in the series.

His most well-known running gag is playing the final trumpet note of the opening Muppet Show theme and having some strange thing happen--the bell of the instrument explodes, sprays water, has an inflating balloon in it, et cetera. One of his most popular skits on The Muppet Show was his "Tap dancing in oatmeal."

He has several memorable performances such as his song from The Muppet Movie, "I'm Going to Go Back There Some Day", or his rendition of "My Way". Gonzo fans would also recognise this quote: "I shall now eat a rubber tire to the music of The Flight of the Bumblebee...music, maestro!" Another famous performance is best summed up by his quote, "I shall now defuse this highly explosive bomb while simultaneously and at the same time reciting from the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley." Other acts include: dancing "Top Hat" in a vat of oatmeal, hypnotizing chickens and being hammered feet first into a railway tie by two American Gladiators.

In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, Gonzo played a Tin Man-ish character primarily known as the "Tin Thing."

As anyone can clearly see, Gonzo is undeniably a MUPPET. ANYONE who would like to further dispute that fact can have 10 MINUTES OF TIME OUT when we go to the park this afternoon.

Have I made myself clear??

Oh, and btw: Which Muppet Character are you?

I've finally decided on and registered a new name for a personal website.

Behold the glory of Awesomehead!

Mild research after registering suggests it used to house a porn site.

*Edited to inspire less anger


There are some who may argue that Gonzo isn't a nerd. For all those people I have one word "screwyou".

He deserves mention for one reason, his love interest is a Chicken and Gonzo is a, uh, well, whatever. But dude, he is in love with a Chicken! He also hangs out with cool people like Fozzie the Bear and spends his free time practicing dare devil stunts. Ahhh, he is everything I want to be, extraterrestrial, sexy, and blue. He's also an alien.

Do we really need Adobe Acrobat and Reader?

Another short post, with a small story behind it. Recently, a custodian at work brought in some old videos he had left over from when his kids were small (or some such thing.) And in the collection, I found a video of Bill Cosby's Picture Pages from 1984. I was 5 years old that year.

At any rate, I looked up a site that has some video clips. The hoagie clip is my favorite. Bill was always longing for a hoagie, regardless of what show he was making at the time. "Cliff! Put down that hoagie!"

And how sad am I that I never owned a Mortimor Icabod Marker? Very sad, indeed.

So, I was bored. Which usually means that trouble soon follows. I googled the phrase "things you didn't know..." and I came up with this site:

30 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do on the Internet

I thought I'd share. So far, I'm rather enjoying the idea of Sharpmail's Anon Email Sender, the fun GoogleX toolbar, as well as the Kayak.com travel site. Just a bit to keep you entertained if you too are experiencing boredom.

you know there is too much media coverage on a disaster when this happens.


http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html


check out article two's video footage.

on a relatively cool evening in Las Vegas, I finally ventured out to scandia, one of the towns only kid places to go. batting cages, go carts, arcade, and my goal for the night. Mini golf.

had a pretty good score. I even had a tiger woods moment of glory by sinking in a 15 foot bank shot around a wall in my way.



(CLICK ON THE PIC TO READ THE FUN RULES!!)

after scoring one over par, to escape the heat, I went in to play some video games. I played every game that took only one token galaga, and centipede.

the sad part of the festivities , after decades of service to the community, they closed down for good. I felt bad that a Vegas highrise project bought the whole block, but the minimum wage employees seemed indifferent to the demolition. Even others said "about time" . Where is a mini golf fan to go? Apparently not Vegas.


oh, and give me props for not calling it Putt Putt .

• awesome fish!
  
• Gilligan passes away
  
• funny ink blot test
  
• Flying Spaghetti Monster: THE GAME!
  
• edible "body parts" ... but IS it art?
  
• Bubble Wrap Candy !
  
• smart dog (needs sound)

"Rise, Darth Tom."

101 Greatest Kids TV Themes EVER

this is the sort of site considered to be a resource by the likes of us.

while Gummi Bears certainly wasn't my favorite show, it holds the honor of one of the best theme songs of all time. click here to listen.