Back to regular blogging mode, we come to a subject that has been around since the 60s when advertising and tv shows interesected with each other, with tv shows being about mascots or characters for a certain product. In these early days, the most notable culprit was this:

This is Linus The Lion Hearted. He had his own cereal called "Crispy Critters" back in the 60w and he had his own cartoon show in 1964 that was named after himself. He was the "King" of all the POST Cereal characters, one of these being Sugar Bear, the mascot of "Super Sugar Crisp" which has gone through several name changes like "Sugar Crisp" and "Golden Crisp" to the point where I have no idea if the cereal even exists anymore, because I haven't seen him in quite a long time. Many plots seemed to have revolved around fighting their cereal ad villains and telling kids to bug their parents to buy their cereal.

His reign came to an end in 1969 where the FCC forbade kid's show characters from appearing in ads that sponsored their own show.

So he was gone and we never saw a blantant product ad disguised as a tv show...or did we?

Skip ahead a few years to the 80s. Ah, the decade of cheesiness and corporate greed is raised to a new high (or sank to a new low, depending on your perspective), and several toy lines came and went, with most fading into obscurity outside "I Love The" programs on VH1. The special many toy lines were adapted into tv shows, a trend that has carried on to today, surprisingly. There were some shows where we could argue about which came first: the show or the toy line (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being a very good example), but there are several upon several shows that are basically half hour commercials for said toy line.

Today, I'll give you some info on some of the weirdest, unecessary, and worst tv shows based on toys, and not the other way around.

Let's start with the 80s, shall we? To GoBots. For those of you who don't know, this was Tonka's (and its Japanese origin in Bandai's) answer to Hasbro's (and its Japanese counterpart Takara's) Transformers.

Now, the toys were pretty "meh" to begin with, with the Americanized names being far worse than their original Japanese versions.

For example, Cop-Tur:

Was originally named Gyro-Robo (from the Machine Robo toys). I'd go on an on how this is much better, but Robot Chicken already covered this, so I'll move on.

The story of the show was much like Transformers, but it there were "some" differences. For example:

These are the Defenders, the "Good" GoBots, with their leader, Leader-1, in the center. He transforms into a jet, while Optimus Prime turns into a cab of a Peterbuilt Truck. Totally different. The 2 robots with him, Turbo (left) and Scooter (right) transformed into a Race Car and a Scootrer, respectively. Totally different from the likes of Sideswipe (who transformed into a similar vehicle) and Bumblebee, right?

This is Cy-Kill, the leader of the Decepti...I mean Renegades, the "Evil" GoBots. Definately not a Megatron clone, as he transforms into a motorcycle.

Most of the episodes centered around the Defenders fighting the Renegades. Oh yeah, and it wasn't very interesting. These are the poor man's Transformers, the "K-Mart" versions as quoted by Jason Lee. And somehow, the Bumblebee counterpart was more annoying and had an even more annoying voice. Scooter's no Wheelie (ubergeek reference here) in terms of sucktitide, but he came mighty close. 

I'll add now that I had none of the toys, as I was born well after the show was faded into obscurity and into the racks of Blockbuster. My cousin had many of them, though, including Cop-Tur. I heard he sold them all at a garage sale, I'm still very pissed about that he didn't consider giving them to me.

Yes, Rainbow Brite is next. It's pretty much common knowledge that cartoon shows aimed primarily towards girls have a low set of expectations from the start (My Little Pony, She-Ra, Jem), but Rainbow Brite comes as one of the lamest concepts ever, even if it is for girls. Airing for only 1 year, between 1984 and '85, it's also one of the shortest-lived entries on the list.

The main "story" is that Rainbow Brite is trying to save the world from becoming Greyscale from Murky (who looks like the crook from old Cookie Crisp Commercials) and Lurky (a big, fat fuzzball thing, which usually meant he wasn't smart) Oh, and Rainbow Brite has 7 Color Kids (one for each color of the rainbow) to help her with this "fight."

From my "How the hell do I know this?!" file, the 7 color kids are:

Red Butlet, Lala Orange, Canary Yellow, Patty O' Green, Billy Blue, Indigo, and Shy Vilolet. Indigo...they couldn't even think of another name for this one. I'm ashamed.

There's also some stuff about having bug fuzzballs named Sprites to help them, and Star Sprinkles help to restore color or some weird thing, but I won't go into details, as I'm already ashamed of myself from talking about this in the first place.

But the worst news is, in the wake of cartoons getting live-action movies, like Bratz, Alvin & The Chipmunks, and even Transformers (which kicked rightful ass, by the way), I just saw a trailer of a live-action Rainbow Brite Movie!

Here's the trailer itself:

...You laughed at this.

Ok, let's move on to something more...manly.

Moving to the 90s for a bit, we come to Creepy Crawlers, my vote for most "Out There" tv tie in with a toy. It ran for a very brief time on USA and was reran during the then-Fox Family Channel, where I was reaquianted in the show by proving to me that it actually existed. The actual toy, seen below:

Was basically the boy version of the EZ-Bake Oven. This takes me back. You were able to put different colors of goop into a metal mold of different shapes (the most popular being insects), and 30 hand-scalding minutes later, out pops new rubbery wiggle worms!

How did this make the transirtion into a show?

Simple. The story follows: Chris (the boy pictured in the center) is the main character and the Creepy Crawler ThingMaker in the show does exactly this, make dangerous, sentient creatures. This interests the evil, struggling magician Guggengrime, who steals it to create monsters of his own. Unfortunately, all the monsters, whether good or evil, are a combination of the insects seen on those metal plates with magic tricks. A good example is Guggengrime's sidekick, Spooky Goopy (not pictured, as the show is so obscure a pic can't be found in google search) was an evil green skeleton with handcuffs for hands (based on the classic Handcuff trick) with a talking top hat. The other evil monsters were similarly themed on magic tricks and insects, but they're not important right now, or ever were.

Pretty weird, eh? It gets kinda weirder, and geekier.

With evil monsters, there had to be good ones too. Pictured in the main pic are the original 3: Volt Jolt (Lighting Bug/Floating Lightbulb), T3 (Tick/Card Game & Shell Game), and Hocus Locust (Locust/Rope Trick). Over time, they added 4 more, but once again, they're a bit insignificant right now, and there are no pics of them on the internet.

This was pretty f'd up show's story was basic, the good guys fighting the bad guys, and so on. The show was even lame enough to be lame by USA standards, which had both the Street Fighter & Mortal Kombat cartoons roughly around the same time, not to mention Fox Family's lineup, which had shows ranging from the 80s and the 90s with Creepy Crawlers being a lame part of the scedule to several really terrible shows from around the world like France and the UK. But, like other minor details, that's not important right now. I'm moving on, this entry is starting to confuse the hell outta me.

Battle B Daman

Yes, not even Anime is safe from this. While japan has based several animes on toys (Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Digimon, Beyblades, etc), this is by far their worst idea...that I've heard of.

B Daman was a fad-that-never-was that involved little plastic robots that shot plastic balls out of their chests to strike at other robots.

Unlike giving the toys sentience like other shows, the B Daman themselves are weapons used for combat, much like Beyblades (using stylized tops, but these were more like contests). But, outr of the single episode that I saw, the hero (above) and a random villain faced off with each other in a battle...much in a way that you and I would battle with them: Extremely awkward. But because this is a cartoon, the balls that were fired had much better aim, traveld really fast and far, and hurt if you got hit with them. There was also the unecessary drame of this:

Villain: I'm going to take over the world!

Hero: Well, I challenge you to a battle, but we must use these little plastic robots, available in all toy stores!

Villain: Ok, I accept, and when I beat you with these children's toys, convieniently priced at $11.99, I'll go on to take over the world!

Insert conversation with just about any anime playing on Kids' WB or Fox these days.

Bratz

No...just...no. Dear God, no! Even I have standards!! What the hell can I say about this that everyone else on the goddamn planet has ripped apart about haven't done so already?! WHY??!?!?!

A-Hem. With the "live-action movie" dissappearing from theaters soon, there is (or was, I don't pay attention to Saturday morning tv anymore since I sleep through it now) a CGI animated tv series starring the Slutz dolls. I'd watch Rainbow Brite for the rest of my blogging life instead of one minute of this. No. Burn all the toys, shoot the people that made it, especially the fucking bastard that greenlit the movie!

Sigh...It must be getting late. I'm probably not going to get much sleep now since I riled myself up like that.

If you can believe it, there's actually one show much, much, worse than this.

If there was one really "WTF?" tv show concept, it would be this one.

They made a show. Based on a Rubik's Cube. Holy. Crap.

If you must know of any plot, it went like this: Rubik's show made up of one-half hour of Pac-Man's show, which was packaged with this one. Rubik was a cube that fell out of an evil magician's watch and he helps out 3 latino siblings, Carlos, Lisa, and Reynaldo Rodriguez in their everyday life and they protect him from the magician trying to take him back. And apparantly he gains the head of David The Gnome when he's solved, which I never knew becuase I'm too freaking stupid to solve one of those things. But I did see a guy at FAO Shwarz solve it, but unfortunately, the cube didn't gain sentience and kick people's ass with his blinding, changing colors.

I'm surprised the show lasted as long as it did, which was more than one episode.

Well, it's getting late, maybe I'll add some more later on, but right now I need to get some rest.

Well, it happened, I finally made it to Facebook. For those of you who have one, I can be found here: http://sjcny.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526384841 

At first glance...It's very similar to myspace, but with a few differences:

1) Unless you have a facebook account, you can't see a thing. Good, because of the privacy of no longer having total strangers & spambots view your profile at any given moment.

2) With this tradeoff, there is a stalker-ish like program called "Mini-Feed" which tracks your every freaking move on that site, where any page you go to, anything you update, anyone you add, is added on your page for all to see. Good for people with faulty memories or obessive people like me who like to see if anyone checked their page, but there's also the stalkerish side to it...you can track anyone and there are people that like to check to see if there are any deep, forbidden bowels of sites...and everyone can see if you've been there. Crap.

3) The one thing I didn't like about myspace is not there in facebook: that people change their profile to look like one of those stupid, lame Tripod sites from 10 years ago filled with too much stuff it slows down and/or crashes the computer whenever you try to see it.

Apparantly, all the profiles seem to have the same, uniform look to it, which I do like. Aside from various "applications," I don't see profiles with lots of stuff on Facebook as "distracting."

What made me create a facebook? 2 Reasons:

1) Everyone I know seems to pay more attention to their facebooks, while they have neglected or even deleted their myspaces. It seems like this is where the action is now.

2) I read some article about the 101 Best Facebook Applications, and the fact that a "Pokedex" was one of them that made me decide to get a facebook. It was the first application I added.

As for the blog...I'll only update it here, but on Facebook, I'll link all my new posts there, so everyone there can see the blogs here!

Make way for the internet's newest attention whore...again!

It's been nearly a year since I started this myspace and I've been pondering long and hard on the subject of Facebook.

Nearly 4 months into starting this one, nearly everyone I knew either stopped paying attention to their myspace or had moved on to Facebook. If I join Facebook...I wonder what will happen 4 months after? Will there be another social networking site gaining in popularity that people will flock to? Will people actually pay attention top the obviously trivial subjects of everyone else? Or will people actually *gasp* interact with each other, face-to-face?!

Fortunately, my blog (which is only updated every once in a while because I simply cannot think of anything interesting to post something every single day, like many of the professional blogs I read) still seems to be getting readers. As of this typing, 85 people have read this blog this week, and my view total is (as of typing this) 12,198!  I think I can thank my "Straight Ballin'" post last year as one of the big factors.

I literally went from around 85 views total to around 1000 within a week. It is, by far, the most successful blog post I've ever done. (2nd place goes to the 5 Worst Pokemon post that I submitted to fark. I think it's permanent presence on the site guarantees me a few views every day)

My theory on facebook is that it seems to be where all the action is. EVERYONE I know has been talking about using it more than myspace now. And most of the people that do rarely mention, let alone maintain, their myspace anymore. Everything seems to be getting done there, and myspace feeling neglected. Sure, I was never a fan of myspace, and it hasn't sucked out my soul. It did give me something to look at during long, boring days.

Another plus was meeting all these people whom I've lost contact with pver the years. And some people who want me to be their friend, which I accept, and then never talk to me again. Blog too...I used to get comments at least once on every blog I post. But now...nothing.

But if and when I do manage to create a facebook page, I will promise to not completely migrate there, and I will definately keep the blog here, because moving it will be such a freaking hassle. I also promise to announce the creation of the facebook right here on the blog!

Well, it's been 5 days since the release of "Deathly Hallows" and most of you out there have read the book in its entirety by now to prevent spoilage by people like me.

Well...let's see how many of my predictions came true, and what REALLY happened in the final installment.

WARNING: IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE 8 PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT FINISHED IT BY NOW, THERE ARE ACTUAL SPOILERS TO THE BOOK BELOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

If you're one of those people who are too lazy to scroll down a few inches, here was my list of predictions of what would happen:

-Harry dies
-Voldemort dies
-Harry AND Voldemort die
-Snape is "Foe"
-Snape dies
-Dumbledore comes back to life and avenges his own death on Snape
-Voldemort is Harry's father
-Harry discovers that his parents are actually alive
-Hermoine & Harry somehow get together, and both die
-Ron dies
-The last Horcrux is in Voldemort himself
-"          " "         " is in Harry
-Hermoine's a guy
-Book ends on a reset button, with the last part starting over from Book 1
-Book ends on a cliffhanger
-Ron professes his love for Harry/Hermoine/Draco/all of the above
-Hagrid dies
-Draco Dies
-Voldemort is revealed to be Harry from the future and traveled back in time
-Harry's thundebolt scar is magical and saves the world somehow
-Last page ends with JK Rowling saying "Thanks for wasting the last 10 years of your life to make me a billionaire"

Now...let's see how many of these came true:

-Harry dies

Well...sort of true. Harry is hit by a spell by Vcoldemort and it seems that he dreams of meeting Dumbledore, but he later wakes up/comes back to life.

-Voldemort dies

This one was a given. Of course this bastard had to die. All of the Horcruxes were destroyed and Voldemort was killed by Harry.

-Snape is "Foe"
-Snape dies
-Dumbledore comes back to life and avenges his own death on Snape

Snape does indeed die, but he reveals that he was "Friend" all along. He explains that Dumbledore had planned for his own death months in advance.

-Voldemort is Harry's father
-Harry discovers that his parents are actually alive
-Hermoine & Harry somehow get together, and both die
-Ron dies

All false. The "Voldemort is Harry's Father" one was a fake spoiler given by Stephen Colbert. Harry's parents are dead, but at one point, he does summon their ghosts to help fight.

-The last Horcrux is in Voldemort himself
-"          " "         " is in Harry

Shows you how little I know about this. A piece of Voldemort's soul is still within him, making it moot.

BUT there was "a" Horcrux in Harry (which probably prevented his death, as the horcrux was destroyed by Voldemort's spell and saving Harry), just not the last one. That was a total wild guess by me.

The real last one was in Nagini, Voldemort's snake.

-Hermoine's a guy
-Book ends on a reset button, with the last part starting over from Book 1
-Book ends on a cliffhanger
-Ron professes his love for Harry/Hermoine/Draco/all of the above

The "Hermoine's a Guy" one is also a joke, and was suggested on the Colbert Report.

As for the endings of the book...these two "endings" don't happen. There is an epilogue that takes place 19 years later after Harry kills Voldemort. There is a slight cliffhanger as:

1) What happens after the events of the epilogue
2) Possible new book ideas that take place between the last chapter and the 19 year gap of the events of the Epilogue

The epilogue also suggests that Ron & Hermoine got married. So I was partially right there.

-Hagrid dies
-Draco Dies

They survive. Besides Voldemort, the only "Important" characters to die are Hedwig (came out of nowhere) & Dobby.

-Voldemort is revealed to be Harry from the future and traveled back in time
-Harry's thundebolt scar is magical and saves the world somehow

Both are things I made up. Neither happen, sadly. They would've made the story a hell of a lot more interesting. Plus, I read into Voldemort a little more...it would have made the "I'm actually Harry" revelation highly implausible.

And Harry's scar is just a scar and is still there 19 years later. Damn.

-Last page ends with JK Rowling saying "Thanks for wasting the last 10 years of your life to make me a billionaire"

This wasn't there, sadly, but an enscription does mention "To those who held on until the end" ...I forget what the rest of the enscription says, but it does suggest the "wasting the last 10 years" theory.

And...that's it. Goodnight. Now if you excuse me, I have tickets to a midnight showing of the Simpsons Movie!

It seems Harry Potter Mania has swept America once again, and it's up to me, a not-fan of the Boy Wizard, to not care.

Not caring enough to read any of the books or see any of the movies or be brainwashed by the merchandising blitz, but I will give my speculation as to possible plot points to the final book "Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows."

NOTE: I HAVE NOT READ ANY SPOILERS AT ALL, SO NOT EVEN I KNOW IF THESE ARE RIGHT ARE NOT. IF BY SOME ODD CHANCE ANY OF THE BELOW ARE RIGHT...I APOLOGIZE (BUT AS A NOT-HARRY-FAN, I DON'T REALLY CARE AND LIKE SEEING THE PISSED OFF LOOK ON PEOPLE'S FACES)

I WILL UPDATE THIS BLOG WHEN THE TRUE SPOILERS ARE REVEALED.

UNTIL THEN, THIS IS JUST SPECULATION AND THESE MAY OR MAY NOT BE SPOILERS.

YOU PROBABLY SKIPPED THIS PART. I DON'T CARE, I STILL GET PAID.

Here's a list of several thing that I think may happen:

-Harry dies
-Voldemort dies
-Harry AND Voldemort die
-Snape is "Foe"
-Snape dies
-Dumbledore comes back to life and avenges his own death on Snape
-Voldemort is Harry's father
-Harry discovers that his parents are actually alive
-Hermoine & Harry somehow get together, and both die
-Ron dies
-The last Horcrux is in Voldemort himself
-"          " "         " is in Harry
-Hermoine's a guy
-Book ends on a reset button, with the last part starting over from Book 1
-Book ends on a cliffhanger
-Ron professes his love for Harry/Hermoine/Draco/all of the above
-Hagrid dies
-Draco Dies
-Voldemort is revealed to be Harry from the future and traveled back in time
-Harry's thundebolt scar is magical and saves the world somehow
-Last page ends with JK Rowling saying "Thanks for wasting the last 10 years of your life to make me a billionaire"

Once again, this is pure speculation as I have not read any spoilers. Good chance I'll update once the book comes out.

Wow...the time just seems to go by fast, doesn't it? The 4th of July came & went, and now it's 7/7/07, the luckiest day in our lifetime.

Many people got married, some went to gamble. Me...I worked  But it was air-conditioned, so there's really no reason to argue.

But the topic of today's blog is that because of all the world's troubles are over, a list of the 7 Modern Wonders of The World was announced today. For those of you out of the loop, they are:

1) Machu Pichu
2) Great Wall of China
3) The Colosseum in Rome
4) That Statue of Jesus in Brazil
5) Taj Mahal
6) The Chichen Itza Pyramid in Mexico (that pyramid with all the steps)
7) Petra in Jordan (your guess is as good as mine about this one)

Well...that's great and all, but...Since it's 7/7/07...I'd like to add my own personal 7 Wonders.

1) Baby Carrots

Yes, Baby Carrots. The weird, small, scrumptious, orange vegetable treat of the world. It's one of the things I like to eat at night...but how they're made is a mystery. Some say that they're full-grown carrots chopped up, others say that they're grown that small. I say...It was the work of a genius. Why the guy who invented these is not in my imaginary Inventor's Hall of Fame, I'll never know.

They're also one of Stephen Colbert's "Fantasies", and he has an irrational fear that they're trying to turn him gay. All I know is...it's fun to say "Baby Carrots" Say it with me: Baby Carrots. Baby Carrots! BABY CARROTS!!

2) Walt Disney World/Land

Now for an actual structure...Disney World and Disneyland! Yes, these archetectural marvels are what defined "Them Park" and every other amusement park created afterwards have been copying them...and the ones that came before have Disney influence as well.

Tired of the old, unsafe decrepit carnivals, Walt Disney came up with a dream...a dream where he could take his children where they would always have a good time, where families of all ages can enjoy themselves, and that ticket prices cost $70. Say what you will, but think of all the major disney parks: Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, Epcot, MGM, Animal Kingdom, etc. They're not like any other place you've been to before. You need a week to get through all of it, and thanks to those ridiculously high prices for everything, you know they're not going to skimp out on anything! Actual animals! Spaceship Earth! All those castles! $7 Churros!

Definately the nicest place I've ever been to...Which I need to go back to, I havent been to Disney World since 2001.

3) Millennium Force

An all-around spectacular Roller Coster, we come to Cedar Point's own Millennium Force. Opening in 1999 and Standing 310 feet tall, it is currently the 4th tallest coaster in the entire world (beaten by Steel Dragon 2000, Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka)...And I rode it. 3 times. Just a simply stunning-looking coaster that just rises out of that forest, with the first 2 hills resembling a giant wavy "M" as if someone used the Jokerman font while making it.

That deep, perfect water-shining Blue color just adds to the awesomeness, and it just compliments that great big sky and the surprisingly clean waters of Lake Erie.

Definately an all-around great, and simply awe-inspiring from any angle, whether you're pulling into the parking lot from the causeway, to looking down the first drop from your own seat on the coaster...simply I can't make up any more words to say that this is one of my favorite structures ever.

4) Coney Island

It's another amusement park but...It just says "America's Wonder." Hell, the "Wonder Wheel" has "Wonder" on a big-assed sign right on itself!

It's a space in Brooklyn that has been amazing people since before the turn of the century and has gone through lots and lots...and lots of changes, most of them bad. At one point, all of the amusement parks stretched from the Parachute Jump to what is now the New York Aquarium...that's a damn long stretch of Boardwalk. But several decades later, what do we have? An aquarium,  many apartment buildings, a minor league baseball stadium that was built on some Coney Island Ruins (what was left of the legendary Thunderbolt to be exact), the ruins of the Parachute Jump, and only 2 small amusement parks: Dino's Wonder Wheel Park and Astroland (containing the mighty Cyclone), pictured above.

But when Labor Day rolls around...Astroland will be no more. The buyers claim that a new, much more awesome indoor amusement park will be built on its space, but that's what they said when Steeplechase closed...and most of that space is still vacant, with even more ruins.

But there are things that are here to stay: The Parachute Jump, The Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone are all official Landmarks, making them unable to be torn down. There is also the famous original Nathan's hot dog place, where the annual Hot Dog Eating Contest is held every July 4th. Nothing can say more American than an American, Joey Chestnut, finally winning a contest of eating some America Food.

Like all Wonders...Love it while it's here people. I sure am.

5) Heinz Ketchup

(EDIT: the pic that used to be here that I saw was originally a Ketchup bottle, but I guess through some anti-hotlinking thing, a nasty foot was shown in its place.   I apologize if it showed up on your compy, and now the pic is hopefully different)

Ah, my one thing I can't live without...Ketchup, preferrably by Heinz. True fact: Out of the last 7 or so years, I've only gone 2 days without eating a drop of ketchup. Yes, it's either addiction or tradition, but I still does it.

This magic condiment I believe makes anything tastes great, even stuff that is already good: Eggs, hot dogs, chicken, fries, burgers, ribs, etc. The only ting I won't put on it? Breakfast stuff like Waffles and pancakes and the like. I've tried it...not good.

And John Kerry's wife is the descendant of the creator of Heinz, and if he got elected...it might've been the country's official condiment. All I know is: I salute you, Mr. Heinz, and your 57 Pickle Varieties, you make my food taste good! I'm going to add him to my imaginary Inventor's Hal of Fame too, since I apparantly forgot about him.

6) Las Vegas

A true city that never sleeps, Las Vegas! I can't wait until I'm 21 next year and go for myself.

It's a "Wonder" that this gambler's paradise was able to be created. A collection of casinos (before they were this nice)...in a desert...in Nevada...at the time, hard to access, let alone have anyone travel there...with most of those casinos run by the mob. Somehow, it worked, and it evolved into the sight you see before you. It's an engineering marvel, all of these places, as real as they may seem, such as the Eiffel Tower for the Paris, the Volcano at the Mirage, the Fountain at Bellaggio, the Pirate Ship at Treasure Island, the castle at Excalibur, the Pyramid the New York facade of New York New York, Caesar's Palace, all those other hotels that were imploded, etc., they're all fake.

All of them. Yet we're all amazed at their existence and we don't realize that we're in a desert until the moment you step outside. I'm pretty sure that this was actually nominated for New World Wonder, but lost.

7) Times Square

Ah yes, the heart of NYC in my mind, Times Square! Where anything and everyhting is seen and possible! Literally there is everything here, from Broadway Shows to Comedy Clubs, to various food stands, to M&Ms stores, to a big Toys R Us, to the New Years Eve Ball, to the various news tickers that read "...Crime Up 8 Million Percent..." to places to take with your camera, and people of all races and walks of life to take your camera. Literally anything.

Just in the middle of all of these imposing skyscrapers and lights and sensory overlad, it's easy to get distracted by them and accidentally wander into oncoming traffic and kill yourself. That's a Wonder in my book.

And there you have it. My list of the 7 Wonders of the World. Enjoy. Got a suggestion? Post below (it would really make me happy for you to post anything)

Well, I'm bored, so I guess it's time to blog again!

With the recent retirement of Bob Barker from "The Price Is Right" (one of my favorite game shows), I see the end of an era for good, cheesey game shows, and what good way to end Bob Barker's 30 year tenure with:

-A woman actually winning $1000 from the Big Wheel.
-That Canadian Guy falling on his ass as soon as he was picked to "Come On Down!"
-Someone who managed to get all the chips for Plinko...and still hit "0" a good 2 or so times.
-People winning all the games in the first half. I was impressed.
-Philip, who basically had an orgasm reaching the Showcase after 5 days of waiting in line.
-All of those people who waited just as long and weren't picked.
-Those 2 unlucky bastards who WERE picked at the beginning of the show and never got to play. The guy on the far right was indeed that one bastard that added $1 to the bid of the person that went before him, even bidding "$1" himself.
-Bob Barker NOT having his final line "Go neuter yourself!"

Before I digress...My subject for this blog is to ramble about the game shows I absolutely despise. Why this? Because I've figured out a while ago that people pay more attention to the blogs where I rip stuff apart than the ones where I praise stuff.

Deal or No Deal

Yes, one of the newest "hits" for NBC, we come to "Deal or No Deal." As if the goal of the game is this simple...it isn't. This game is where 26 Hot models stand on a stage holding briefcases with 26 different dollar amounts, ranging from 50 cents to $1 Million and you, the contest, have one of the briefcases with one of the dollar amounts which you will win...But first you have to open the rest of the briefcases to show which amounts you didn't win. After an hour's worth of unecessary drama...you MIGHT have the briefcase with the big money and you can take it...OR...OR...[insert unecessary drama here]...You could go with the mysterious "Banker" who offers cash that may or may not be worth more than the money that you have in your briefcase. That's where "Deal or No Deal" comes in.

In short...That whole explanation is unecessary, as it's a hell of a lot easier and anticlimatic to open your briefcase first and just run...but that wouldn't be fun or...unecessarily dramatic with all the dialogue...delayed...with..lots of periouds...and all off the words...are in...unecessary bolded italics.

Yeah, I turned my tv off at the first break and wonders why the show is still on. They always advertise guest stars appearing for some reason...only to be Live Via Satellite and adding nothing. The only good thing I can think of for this show is that it got Howie Mandel a job after several years of...doing whatever he was doing after "Bobby's World" got cancelled and the residuals for "Gremlins" and "Muppet Babies" weren't paying him enough.

National Bingo Night

I kid you not, they made an actual game show out of the "classic" Bingo Game. The pic above is a part of the game...what's defined as a game anyway. Coming from ABC, it's hosted by Ed Sanders, the same guy who hosts "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" which also stars...Ty Pennington, whom my friend Steve theorizes is the real CEO of Sears. (long story, ask him), so you know that this show just "screams" excitement

The premise of this show is interactive: where not only the contestant playing the weird games gets to win by fufilling it's odd rules, but the people in the audience as well as the people at home can complete their bingo cards from the balls that are called in a game to win "fabulous" prizes, from grand prizes such as a Royal Carribbean Cruise and lots of cash, to cookies baked by Betty White to $5 K-Mart gift cards. I'm damn serious about this.

The only episode that I managed to watch had a guy playing a game called "Odd Or Even" where the he had to guess whether the next bingo ball played was odd or even, and if he was right, the number of the ball would be added to a "calendar" and if a full 365 year was completed, he'd win $10,000 or some big cash amount. BUT, if a member of the audience got a Bingo from all of the numbers called first, they won and he didn't.

Like all current shows, unecessary drama fills the air here, where after every number, people who were "one away" would stand up, and the guy who played the ref, this guy:

would see if anyone got a bingo and would shout "NOOOO BINGOOOO!" in the heavy middle eastern accent that he had when no one said anything. Fortunately or not for me, the contest managed to complete a year and no one in the audience managed to get a bingo, so we heard "NOOOO BINGOOOO!" several dozen times throughout the hour. He seems like the janitor of the building that got asked "Hey, want to be on a tv show?" and he said "ok" as long as he still got to be the janitor. Yep, there's my Weird Al reference for this blog.

The thing is...the show is indeed rigged as several balls are called and are edited out, which explains are some people are able to stand up after a single commercial break with seemingly 4 numbers called. And, oh yes, their cards lack "Free Spaces" so the contestant has a better chance of winning...and that the game is not 15 minutes long.

The way that people play at home is that they download and print their offical "Game cards" off the NBN site, and try to claim the big prizes for themselves. The problem? Like all sweepstakes...it's also rigged and that there is a spectacularly small chance that the card you printed out was one of the winners...just like actual Bingo.

Not 5 minutes into this show...I knew it was awful but I wanted to turn it off, but I couldn't. Not because it was hypnotic, but because my Mom loved this show and was trying to see if her cards had any small chance of winning. Just like actual Bingo.

Iron Chef America

Mind you, I'm not talking about the original Iron Chef, but Iron Chef America, Food Network's american "bastardization" of Japan's Iron Chef show.

I used quotes because it's not a total bastardization. Much like the original Iron chef, every episode its some good, ususally famous cook goes against the show's "Iron Chef" in a 1-hour cooking contest to make 5 dishes with the same common ingriedient, ranging from Lamb, to Pork, to Squid, to Shark Heads. The dishes are then judged by 3 "celebrity" judges.

What makes the idea of this version inexcusable is that because the show is Americanized, it took away the charm of what made the original Iron Chef so awesome: the original show was in Japanese, and the transition over stateside resulted in dubbing that seemed to scream "Godzilla" as a cooking show. Just the bad lip-synching of the dubbing as well as the VOs used for it...so damn hilarious. Not to mention the host, Chairman Kaga...the most exaggerated dramatic Asian Stereotype you've seen, and he was funny as hell, moreso by the dubbing. I think we've all seen that pic of the host biting into the pepper. If not, here it is:

At least with Iron Chef America they got his nephew as the host, although not nearly as exaggerated as his uncle was...up there in his small-sized glory.

And without this...Iron Chef America isn't interesting at all.

American Idol

Yes...American Idol. Call it a reality show...I say it's a karaoke contest, and the only reason why it's a reality show is that the audition process is slapped at the beginning of it.

Just...ugh, I absolutely hate it. I do like the auditions though, because you can see the judges being harsh on the "singers" who generally suck and have been sucked into this false sense of success because they managed to get past the auditions in front of the producers. And even now, in season...I forget, the pool is slowly draining of good ones and the ones that are awful seem to be trying to capitalize on William Hung's unexpected fame. After this part is over...I don't watch, save for the last 2 minutes of the finale, to see who won: Good Looking Teenager Who Will Not Have Much Success, or Androgynous Closeted Gay Singer Who Sounds Better Than The Person Who Actually Will Win.

I actually didn't know the top 2 people this year. And I seriously said about the one who won "Holy crap, it's a chick!"

In short: Stop watching. It's just pointless, and no one reading this will listen. What's there to gain from this except for Shadenfreude? And the people who do win...when's the last time we've heard from any winners save for Kelly Clarkson? (who, I'll admit, is actually pretty good and deserved her win)

And these are the games shows I don't like. Stay tuned for the ramblings of the games shows I do like (but, to you...it probably won't be as interesting)

Yes, I've finally got around to it...Blog #50!

Ah...memories...that I wrote into digital myspace blogs that only has around 10 serious readers (with 6 of them actual subscribers)

It's been a while...let's update on what happened since my last blog.

In terms of my 11 things on my "To-Do List" for Summer, as of this writing, I have accomplished...10 of them, with the only one missing is to catch up on DVD watching.

I did go back to NYC with Sammie & Steve, and got this great pic:

A picture of a guy in a Spider-man suit in front of the M&Ms store in Times Square. For some reason or another, he has a backpack...apparantly full of pictures, that no one wanted to be bothered with. I knew that this wasn't the real Spider-man only because of the air holes in his mask!

I also took this great one:

Steve & I giving the finger to the McGraw-Hill Company Building. This insidious company makes most of the overpriced textbooks for us college students. It is because of these bastards is why we were practically broke for that day's trip.

The only way this pic would've been sweeter is if someone was looking right at us through one of the windows.

In other events, trhough some weird lucky chance, one of my frat bros (Pax) just calls me up on June 2nd saying "My friend has 2 tickets for the Weird Al concert tonight at Westbury Music Fair...you interested?"

If you know me, fast forward a few hours later where Sam & I were at the Weird Al concert. And it was awesome, and Sam finally got to see him live for the first time (which is something I highly recommend doing).

Sadly, the only pics I have are too-bright pics of the stage on my cell phone. But we got to see him play all his great songs (Fat, Eat It, Saga Begins, Amish Paradise, Smells Like Nirvana, etc), as well as all but 3 songs off the new album (the ones not played were "Pancreas", "Virus Alert" and "Don't Download This Song"), and closes with singing a full version of "Alburquerque" (11:22 long)

In Ice Cream-related activities, I found "Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler" and I have this mini review for it:

It's good...If you like Peaches (which I do). The ice cream itself is Peach-flavored with a peach swirl and bits of cinnamon shortbread pieces. To top it all off, there are actual slices of peaches in the ice cream.

Sadly, I don't have a pic of it, but trust me on this. Still, while I think it's a good ice cream, Americone Dream is better by far.

Also, there was a little suprise that I got today when I went to the Mattituck annual Strawberry Festival was watching their first annual Strawberry Shortcake Eating Contest.

What I didn't know until it started was that it was an official IFOCE (International Federation of Competitive Eating) Event, meaning this was a real-live, honest to goodness Competitive Eating Contest!  I've only watched them on tv and some weird afternoons on the Food Network.

Of course, like every local fair eating contest, there were the "Rookies" the casual people who didn't know what they were getting into, but the main attraction was that just about every non-Asian Competitive Eating "Legend" was there:

-Ed "Cookie" Jarvis (Didn't compete, but was a referee)
-"Badlands" Booker (also didn't compete, and did a rap off his new album)
-"The Mad Greek" (who is competing in his 6th Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th)
-"Big Mike" (I think that's what his name was), so ungodly fat that the festival didn't have a Strawberry Festival Eating Contest T-shirt in his size, around XXXL (I think the only one was snagged by Jarvis)
-Brian Seiken, the current Pickle-Eating champ.
-I'm pretty sure Joey Chestnut was there, as I heard that one of the guys with the rookies was a "French Fry Eating Champ" and that he got nowhere near the top 3.
-"Crazy Legs" Conti, my favorite out of all of them. He wore a red Cowboy Hat and did the "Regurgitating Rope" trick after the contest was done. He won 3rd place.
-"Eater-X" who won 2nd place, who also competed with his dad, Peter.
-"Deep Dish" Patrick Bertolelli, who won by eating 15 1/4 lbs of Strawberry Shortcake in 8 minutes.  A feat that impressed me friend Steve.

There were some others there, but I don't remember their names, or that the announcer that was there couldn't be understood at times because of all the noise. All in all...freaky experience. It's something that I would never do...unless it was that French Fry eating contest, I'd be all over it. Come to think of it...I'd probably kick some ass in a Chicken Nuggest eating contest too. A Blogger can dream...

Finally, the reason why this post was so delayed...I was supposed to post a Top 50 list here...of the greatest Animated Villains of All Time. 2 Problems arose:

1) I only have 47 entries
2) Very complicated thing involving Microsoft Word and that my copy is a trial version...which had expired at the beginning of the month and I can't download a new one.

If anyone has a Product Key for a full version of Word 2007 Standard Edition, that would help me (and this blog) out IMMENSELY! Thanks in advance.

And there you have it...Notice that I didn't try to be annoying and post the word "Blog" 50 times?

Wow, it's not even Memorial Day and I've already completed at least 7 of my To-Dos for summer (8 come Wednesday).

#7 of course, was completed yesterday & today because of the discovery of this:

Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream! After months of searching, I finally found it on Long Island!  One of the newest Pride & Joys of Ben & Jerry's, and it's finally mine! All mine!!  

And it's the topic of my latest installment of "Galileo Reviews Stuff"! Finally, I'm slowly resurrectin a forgotten blog segment...

Anyway, I found it at a local Shop Rite of all places (according to the Ben & Jerry's Flavor Locator on their site, the only kind of store selling Americone Dream on Long Island are Shop Rites. Check to see if there's one near you!)

True Fact: It's B&J's biggest seller since Cherry Garcia

Instead of using a stock Glamour Shot of the ice cream, here is another actual pic that I took of the ice cream just a few hours prior to typing this blog. There is Americone Dream in all its sugary glory! It is Vanilla with Fudge-Covered Waffle Cone Pieces ("The only time I do waffle!" quoted from Stephen himself) and a Caramel Swirl. You can definately see the small pool of caramel in the center of the pint box.

Ok, I'll admit, I'm no fan of caramel, but I will say that the ice cream is Very Good even with the caramel. The vanilla is great and the fudge-covered waffle cone pieces gives it a nice, cold crunch to it that makes me proud to be am American...or at least a card-carrying citizen of the Colbert Nation (hell, I put Steagle Colbeagle The Eagle in my Top 5 Mascots list). I give it 4 's and a .

This ice cream even cured the headache that I've been having the past few days! It's that magical, people! It has curative properties!  Maybe it's the eagle on the label about to snatch the cone from the pic of Ben and Jerry...

I definately recommend trying it, and worth the $4 I paid for it. Next one that I'll try? Hmm...maybe Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler, that one sounds pretty good.

After a month or so of planning I finally got my ass to Six Flags Great Adventure for a time of the year that wasn't Fright Fest!

I went with: My girlfriend, my friend Steve & my friend T.J. (High School friend).

We were scheduled to leave around 6:30 but we didn't leave until around 7 because Steve & Sam went 20 minutes down Sunrise Highway...the wrong way. Paritally my fault by not saying that they were supposed to go West (evenm though they already knows this, lol)

So we finally leave with me driving (crap!) but I manage to get us all there in one piece. We stopped at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike to get some "breakfast" of Roy Rogers & Cinnabon (Steve got fried chicken, I got a egg & cheese croissant and curly fries, Sam got the Cinnabon). It turns out I got Holster Fries and Steve ended up (for a short time) wearing the holster pack, but he ripped it off.

Skip to when we get into the park around 10:20. There's hardly ANY cars there, save for several buses with about a dozen different school trips (various choir clubs, Physics Day, field trips, etc), so the line to get into the park turned out to be the longest wait of all, we didn't get into the park itself until 10:50. We didn't get going until 11 when TJ had to take the chain off of his wallet and return it to my car. Complete fluke & irony, Sam managed to get a tiny Swiss Army Knife that was attached to her bag past security, but that's our little secret.

So rides itself, the first one was El Toro! There was a surprisingly short wait, about 15 minutes max, and I have to say that the ride is absolutely awesome!! Just that first drop...wow. Simply wow. Easily my new favorite coaster in the park, and that includes Nitro (which is one of my favorite coasters)

I also rode these (in order I think):

-Rolling Thunder: Right side
-Medusa
-Runaway Mine Train
-Teacups
-Scream Machine
-Wave Swinger
-Nitro
-Batman: The Ride
-Big Wheel
-Kingda Ka
-El Toro (line was even shorter this time, still awesome)
-Rolling Thunder: Left side (they actually had this racing near the end of the day. Me & Sam were in left, TJ and Steve were right. We won!)

Kingda Ka...I also conquered this coaster for the first time. Once again, surprisingly short wait at about 20 minutes. That launh is absolutely INSANE! Holy. Crap. I fucking screamed like a Banshee the entire time (or "Flanders-ish" as Steve called it), my throat is still sore from it, sadly. Very awesome coaster and I can see why it's so popular...and why there are such long waits on it.

Take in account the times we stopped for food, as well as that Temple of the Tiger show at 5, we ended our day roughly around 7, when we thought the park closed (rides running after the fact that the park closed at 8, which kinda pissed me off). After a half hour or so in the gift shops, we all decided we were tired & sore and wanted to go home.

And so here I am. Tired, drained, and lots of dollars poorer now. It's a damn good thing i'm getting paid tomorrow.

And here I thought that the Shamrock shake was long dead and buried here in NY. You may remember my previous quest to find the Shamrock Shake on Long Island here, and its result here.

It seems that McDonald's had succumbed to the advertising blitz that is "Shrek The Third," and it has now rethemed a lot of stuff with Shrek crap (at the very least, adding green to everything as well as putting unfunny lines from the previous films and the cups and boxes). They've also introduced some new Shrek-themed foods, such as a "Swamp Sludge" McFlurry with green smarties & M&Ms, as well as something called a "Minty Mudbath Shake," which is very green, and very mint.

Some Shamrock Shake followers said that a true Shamrock Shake is a mint-flavored green-dyed variant of the vanilla flavor, while the Minty Mudbath was a combo of mint and chocolate, kinda like a Thin Mint. Because I've never eaten a Thin Mint, let a lone a Shamrock Shake, I had to find out for myself!

For comparison's sake, a Shamrock Shake looks like this:

(pic from Flickr)

While in comparison, a Minty Mudbath looks like this (kinda):

 (pic courtesy of Mystie)

Ok...it didn't really look like this, but it's mighty close. (it has a little brown coloring to it to resemble mud) I can't find a single damn pic of it on the net! The closest thing is a cup with the shake in it sitting next to a Shrek bag on Flickr that can't be copied.

So on Saturday, while on break during work, I manage to buy and try one of these Minty Mudbath Shakes. Hmm...my taste? Very Mint, with some hint of chocolate. It was during my first sip was when I realized something important: I DON'T LIKE MINT-FLAVORED THINGS!  I was grossed out by the strong mint taste...but for some reason I could not stop drinking it. All of that searching, for this! All in all, this may or may not be the elusive Shamrock Shake, but I call it "Damn Close Enough" and update my previous quest a Success!

True story, I brought the shake back to work and all of my co-workers were skeeved out by it. After 15 minutes, I was forced to throw it out. Oh well, I really didn't plan on finishing it anyway.

On a more positive note, I shall now close this Disgusting Milkshake Blog with some much-needed Bruce Cambell goodness, with a brand new 1 minute long ad for, you guessed it, Old Spice! And in my book, he didn't dissappoint!

By the way, for those of you keeping count, the word "shake" was said 14 times in this blog, counting the one in the header as well as the one in this very sentence.

Jeez...I haven't blogged in a while! (school stuff, life stuff, etc) My 5 subscribers are really aching for me to post something new, so I shall!

In a somewhat "Who's Honoring Me Now," I have just been named "Hero of The Week" by my friend Steve, whose blog is here.  (He promised to pay me $20 if I promised to link to his blog here)

Why, you ask? Because 2 Saturdays ago, on April 21, I ate this:

A 20-piece Chicken McNugget thing. Actually, due to size standards these days, there are no longer 20 piece boxes, only 2 10 Piece boxes. It took me only approximately 10 minutes (8-10, depending on how good my memory is) to eat all 20. Also, what is with those McNuggets that look like a circle? And what of those that look like the State of Indiana? In that 20 piece, I got plenty of both.

Ok...I know that this was incredibly unhealthy, but I'll admit that I only did it because I wanted to see if I could do it...that, and I had a coupon for 20 pieces for $3.49.

I feel honored, since his past 3 "Heroes of The Week" were Take 2 Entertainment for "Pwning" Jack Thompson, Capcom for Remaking Resident Evil 4 for Wii and confirming a US release of the 3rd Phoenix Wright game, as well as M&Ms World in NY for having both a Kwanzaa and Hannukah Blend. I feel so...esteemed to be joining them.

Also in other Blog news...Sorry ladies, I'm off the market.  In case you didn't see the display pic to your left, I have a girlfriend now, and I'll admit, I've never been happier.  Her name's Sammie, and she's a founder of the newer sorority on the SJC Campus: Alpha Theta Rho. I went to her formal...and then she went to mine (where I was better behaved), and it was good times for all.

More stuff, pics of the Alpha Formal can be seen here, and my pics of Delta Formal can be seen here.

Finally, I've decided to write up a "To-Do" List for Summer, since Finals are next week and there's a lotta stuff that's goin on, and stuff I wanna do.

1. Be with the GF more (I'll have much more time, Sam on the other hand...summer classes + work)
2. Go to an amusement park. I got plans to go to 6 Flags Great Adventure on May 18!
3. Catch up on my DVDs. I have a few DVDs I haven'ty gotten around to watching yet: Transformers: The Movie, Clerks II, Ren & Stimpy, Adult Party Cartoon, and Pokemon: Lucario & The Mystery of Mew (watchin it with DJ, riffing on it)|
4. See the following movies: Spider-Man 3, Hot Fuzz, Shrek The Third (along with Shrek 2), Pirates of the Carribbean 3, Transformers, the Simpsons Movie. (the latter 2...seeing opening day, midnight showing if necessary)
5. Wednesday Nights! DJ's annual Summer hangout party night on wednesdays. I'm definately going to that, it's a summer staple...my 2nd year.
6. Hang out with my non-DPO friends. I have a bunch of them, and I haven't seem them in ages...I need to get on that.
7. Blog some more. I'll find stuff to blog on, you'll see.
8. Go back to NYC. No matter when, I wanna go back there. I also want to do the NBC Studio Tour, and it's been a big desire for me to see either Conan O'Brien and/or The Colbert Report
9. Find Americone Dream. Them ost elusive of all Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors, I've been trying to find it, and I know I'm getting close to it.
10. Team Trip to White Castle! I'm tired of Going on White Castle Excursions by myself...One day, I'd like to get a group of friends together and then go invade a White Castle. Should be fun times.
11. Team Trip To A Buffet. Same as above, but replace with a Buffet place.

And that's it for this blog! Wish me luck on finals!

Ya, it's kinda late tonight. I'm on myspace on a saturday night when I should be doing important things that I'm putting off, like doing an art project, or some papers, finding a date to the Delta Formal, etc. I still have unwatched DVDs from Christmas that I haven't gotten around to! But here I am, typing down stuff I feel like typing down.

I've been thinking about how all of the Superheroes have been getting their own movies lately, like the obvious Superman, Batman & Spider-man, to Ghost Rider to Daredevil, Constantine, Blade, Spawn, the Fantastic 4, and even Iron Man, which was recently announced. The superhero industry is really trying for extra merchandising and it makes me sick. The point is that I've been thinking about really lame superheroes, and ones that I'll know that they'll never get their own ressurrection in movie form of some kind. I know that the Legion of Superheroes has some really lame heroes, but even THEY have their own animated show, so that's out. But I'm talking about something much, much, much lamer than anything DC & Marvel ever cranked out.

And that is this guy:

Yes, Turbo Teen. For those of you who are around my age (20) or younger, It was this really awful show from 1982 that lasted only 12 episodes, yet reran for years, most notably in the early 90s on USA. The main premise? Brett Matthews, a teen who was driving his kickass car, crashed into some lab and was hit by a beam that fused him with his car, which gave him the ability to transform into said car whenever he got hot (like eating chili peppers, being in direct sunlight, or being kissed by his girlfriend, I kid you not), and turned back into Teen form whenever he was cold (being splashed by water). All his adventures centered around trying to get back to normal and/or avoiding the series main villain, Dark Rider.

No surprise that this show lasted as long as it did. Watching that intro sure makes me want to watch it and get hooked.  Yet somehow, as a child, I did.

My theory is this: You gotta be REALLY desperate for a superhero if you need to call up Turbo Teen. I see a typical crisis going like this:

"There's a crisis in town! I need Superman!"
"He's in his Fortress of Solitude, sir."
"Crap! This calls for Spider-man!"
"He's filming Spider-man 3, sir."
"Damnit! Allright...How about Batman?"
"Also filming a movie. Surprisingly, it involves Adam West with a Clayface made of pudding."
"...I'm not even going to ask, what about Wonder Woman?"
"...I'm afraid she's co-starring in the Batman movie"
"Certs! Ok...What about Green Lantern, The Tick, Iron Man, Dr. Fate, The Fantastic 4, Space Ghost, or dare I say it, the Wonder Twins?"
"They're all unvailable."
"...Please tell me the Herculoids are available?"
"They haven't released an album in years!"
"...Harry Potter?"
"He's also at Superman's Fortress of Solitude, sir."
"Fuck, I'm running out of exclamations! Who IS available, then?"
"Well...There's Aquaman and Turbo Teen."
"Hmm...Well, my crisis is in Arizona...and it involves a paved road, so Turbo Teen it is!"

Yeesh...I'd hate to be at that conversation, let alone be the burnt-out writer that would actually make that the plot of a comic. This also sounds like it would be a good bit for a stand-up comedy act, so if I see you do this...I'll know you stole from me.

Well...that's it, I'm done and I'm glad that this is out of my system now. So...Happy Easter, everybody!

Well, it's about time I updated you all on the quests that I have been on for the past month or so.

Shamrock Shakes: Failed. Turns out, every NE region except for LI/NYC have had Shamrock Shakes. Bastards. I settled for Checker's Irish Creme shake...it was allright, but it just wasn't a Shamrock Shake...

Fish Sandwiches: Success. It took me 21 Days, but I did it, with 1 week to spare! And now...a Review of all of em! Sorry if there's no pics for some of them, because there's none on the internet for some of these, as well as that I never bothered taking pics with my camera for them.

1) McDonald's - Filet-o-Fish (regular & Double)

We start the list off with the reason why fish sandwiches are around in the first place: McD's Filet-O-Fish. Created for the Lent season after the failure of the Hula Burger (a slice of pineapple sandwich with cheese), it is one of the most popular sandwihes McDs has to offer. It's also the one sandwich I've eaten at the most. Taste-wise, it's allright, you can really taste the fish, the cheese as well as the globs of tartar sauce on it. Through some whim, I've also once eaten the Double that they offered at the time, and it's basically the same, but with another patty. It's one of my favorites, and it doesn't give me that "I'm gonna die!" feeling that most of the other stuff McDs offers gives me. Strangely, it's one of 2 Fish Sandiwches that did not come with lettuce and came with cheese (the other is White Castle's)

I neglected to mention that the 2 Staples of Fish Sandwiches are, for some reason are tartar sauce and lettuce. Only the 2 I just mentioned have cheese.

2) Wendy's - Fish Sandwich

This is the sandwich that inspired me to create this challenge in the first place. Taste-wise, its ok, it was crispy, and the lettuce that was on it was a bit limp and moist, but it was ok, but not as good as the Filet-o-Fish.

3) White Castle - Fish w/Cheese

Ah yes, the Legendary White Castle. The smallest (1/2 the size of an index card), and the cheapest ($1.25). I've told several people that White Castle is an aquired taste, and this one could either be the best sandwich, or the grossest. Fortunately, I'm in the party that loves this, and I thought that it was great. Besides being one of 2 sandwiches that includes cheese and does not have lettuce, it also does not include tartar sauce (you have to put it on yourself). It has good taste, and you're better off eating it if it's the first in a series of WC sandwiches you get (impossible to have just 1)

4) KFC - Fish Snacker

Ah, another newcomer to the fast food world, the KFC Fish Snacker! Depending on which KFC you go, the price can range from 99 cents to 1.50 (saw it in NYC) I, getting it in a mall, had to pay $1.39 for it. There's a reason why it's called the "Snacker", since the sandwich in the pic above is the actual size.   I'm just kidding, but it is small, roughly the size of 3 White Castle burgers. I have to say, it was allright, not the best, not to worst (I'll get to that one in a moment), but I can see why The Pope wouldn't bless it.

4. Burger King - Spicy Big Fish

Here we come to one of Burger King's 2 fish sandwich offerings of the BK Big Fish. I had the spicy version, and man...BK is evil. They do mean that it is the "Big" Fish, as it is the biggest regular-sized sandwich that I had on the whole quest. They trick you into thinking that when you're eating it that it's ok to eat it, and that it tastes ok with the lettuce & spicy tartar sauce. And then the aftertaste...ick, I can still taste the low tide feeling in my mouth now. You know how some saltwater places like a bay or the ocean smells during low tide? Well, that's how the Big Fish sandwich tasted and it made me nauseous for the rest of the day and it almost derailed my quest just a week into officially doing it.

5) Long John Silvers - Classic Fish Sandwich

Ugh...I gotta cleanse the palate a little bit. Now we come to a rarity, a Long John Silvers! There's only 1 non co-branded one on Long Island, and coincidentally, it is directly on the other side of Sunrise Highway of my college, St. Joseph's in Patchogue (the one pictured above is actually in Tennessee). I can say this about LJS: It's something worth trying once. When I ate it, I thought it was pretty good, top tier, but not the best. Size-wise, it's the 3rd smallest, if this sandwich's lenght was measured in White Castle Bugers, this would be 4 WCs long.

6) Checkers (Fish Sandwich & Deep Sea Double)

Now we come to what I think is the best of the bunch: Checkers! There's the regular fish sandwich and there's the Deep Sea Double, the version pictured above. Hmm, I don't remember there being cheese on it, but then again, I did have that them a few weeks ago...freaking glamour shots, discomobulating me. Either way, both of them have the same stuff, tartar sauce, lettuce, (possibly cheese), and the sandwich overall tastes great. And the Double is...double good? (Edit: Turns out that this pic is indeed the Deep Sea Double and yes, I do remember Cheese being on it. Still awesome, though)

7) Checkers - Fish Screamer

Hmm, yes, it seems that Checkers made a 3rd Fish Sandwich, the Fish Screamer to compliment the Chicken version. There is actually a difference between the ones I just reviewed: The fish patty itself is great as always, and besides lettuce, it actually has mayo, onions, and pickles. Taste-wise..same good patty, but with all the fixin's, its taste eerily resmebles the Filet-o-Fish.

8) Nathans - Fish Sandwich

Here's an oversight I never noticed: Nathan's offers a fish sandwich too. I'll also admit, I cheated a bit and found it not on LI, but in Penn Station. Sure, I have yet to go to a Nathans in recent memory that was NOT co-branded with an Arthur Treacher's (I'll get to that in a bit), but I know they're out there. Very perculiar, as it is Triangular shaped, but nonetheless, it was pretty average compared to the rest. Since it was in Penn Station, It was also the only sandwich that I had access to the legendary Roy Rogers Fixin's Bar, as seen in my previous post (once again, I'll cover that one in a little bit), despite already being served with lettuce, tartar sauce, and a tomato slice. It was good already, but with the fixins, it was made better. I can see why not many Nathans carry this, the ones that are co-branded would make having this seem redundant.

9) Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips - Fish Sandwich

Another obscure chain, this primarily Fish & Chips fast food place has recently been absorbed by Nathan's and are usually co-branded with them (I've heard stories about one co-branded with a Pudgies. Freaky). Look-wise, it's not much different from Nathan's, it's triangular shaped, but there is the difference that it was fried with batter, instead of being breaded like Nathan's is. There's tartar sauce & lettuce here, and it mades the sandwich taste good, but the fish itself could barely be tasted on account of all the sauce on it. I know this is making you hungry reading this, right? Didn't think so.

And we come to our conclusion. I know that there's probably some people out there wondering why A&W and Roy Rogers weren't covered, and I offer this to you: I've tried. I searched the only A&W within driving distance of myself to find that is was co-branded with KFC, so it basically meant no Fish Sandwich. I did manage to read the website, which stated it was only going to be offered at "Select Locations" which I guess didn't mean the ones on LI, but rather an actual full-blooded A&W place, which around here...there are none. Roy Rogers, on the other hand, I managed to find 3: 2 in Penn Plaza in NYC, and one out in Shirley. None of them had the Fish Sandwich, or any evidence of ever having it. The only time I ever saw them mention it was as a news blurb on their poorly-designed website. (clicking on anything leads you to a blank page)

Still, with 11 different sandwiches in the span of around a month, I consider a success, and I'm probably not going to ever eat at these places again.

If I had to rank them, they would be this:

1) Checkers (Fish Sandwich & Deep Sea Double)
2) Checkers (Fish Screamer)
3) McDs (Regular & Double Filet-O-Fish)
4) Long John Silvers,White Castle, Wendy's
5) KFC, Nathan's
6) Arthur Treacher's

Last) Burger King. Yes, it's that bad, don't go there. Period. Colon: Exclamation Mark!

And...that's it. Lots of money down the hole for a blog. I actually don't know why I did this, but I feel a sense of accomplishment that I managed to finish this before Easter. Or perhaps its the nausea from the grease from all the f'ing fast food...

Well, my Bday has come and gone, and I spent the day in NYC with my friends Sam & Steve! Thanx for the Bday wishes, and without further adieu, here is a photo-travelogue of my day!

The reason why I went in the first place: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Damn crappy art class project made me go there. It's well worth seeing, but not for some art project. True Story: Me & Steve were staring at a pillar in the Modern Art section for 5 minutes to see if anyone else would join us. Sadly, it didn't work. We were also tempted to go up to a tour group looking at a modern art painting and say "Hmm...it's upside-down!" We decided not to...we didn't want to get kicked out for some reason.

Riding the bus in Manhattan only assured me that I will never, ever drive in NYC. I'll stick to the train & walking, thank you very much.

The most important stop on the trip: The legendary Nintendo World! Geek mecca, for sure. There were tons of Wii, GBAs & Ds demos as far as the eye can see, as well as lots of Nintendo Swag.

Like this figurine of Ash & Pikachu, convieniently priced at $169.99?! Sure, it was impressive in person, but no geek has that kind of money to burn, epsecially after blowing all their cash on Wii-related products.

And here are various stuffed Pokemon. Quite an odd selection, like Spinda, Natu, Wooper, and Metagross. I got Elekid, 'cause that's my favorite Pokemon. Shut up. There were more on the other side with some more appropriate choices like Latios/Latias, Magikarp, Wobbuffet, and Houndour. Still some odd choices like Sawblu & Corsola, but I feel like I was too late to get the earlier pokemon like Eevee.

Speaking of Wobbuffet...Your guess is as good as mine.

One of the cool things about Nintendo World is that there's a mini-museum featuring all kinds of rare & unique Nintendo stuff, like and NES and its Japanese equivalent, Famicom, a GBA signed by Shigeru Miyamoto, a R.O.B., one of 2 Nintendo Advanced Video Systems (the protoype NES) in existence, some Game & Watches, the Hanafuda cards that Nintendo produced when it began in the late 1800s, and every version of Game Boy, and the one above is an original Game boy that was blown up in the first Gulf War...and it still works! Thanks to an AC adapter, we can see it playing Tetris for years to come.

Ah yes, we went to the Times Square Toys R Us too! This pic of the Ferris Wheel there is the latest of the literally hundreds of pics on the internet of the same damn thing. I just like how the colors came out on this one.

Once again, you can find literally hundreds of pics of the T-Rex in the Times Square TRU. It's one thing to take a pic of this massive thing, but it's incredibly awesome to time it so it seems to be looking right at my camera.

We also went to see the studio where Dave Letterman films his show. He was sick that week, and the show doesn't tape on Fridays, so I didn't expect any action to come from there.

Here's Me & Sam in front of the famous Hello Deli regularly seen on the Late Show (Steve took the pic). Sadly, it was closed. I got pissed, I so wanted to meet Rupert Jee! It turns out that it usually closes at 5:30 on fridays...an hour before we got there.

Ah, one of the high points of the day was going inside the M&Ms store im Times Square. This place sure made the Hershey's store across the street look like crap (it was one small floor...this one had 3!) If only I ate M&Ms, I'd consider it heaven.

This pic on particular is one of their many Giant M&Ms statues, this one was a spinning Blue M&M in a disco outfit (there was a giant Red crashing on a painter's scaffolding with giant pigeons, Green dressed as the Statue of Liberty, and another with Yellow, but I didn't think it was interesting enough to take a picture of it). I got a Happy Bday phone call when I tried to take this pic initially, making wait about an entire minute to have that guy rotate around again, and I got good timing with the angle of the guy's face in the pic. He's looking that way for a reason...

One of the awesome things about the M&Ms store is that there are literally 2 floors worth of those giant tubes filled with M&Ms, many filled with blends of M&Ms found only in those stores. There were blends for every holiday, like Thanksgiving, Halloween, Mardi Gras, and the one above, Christmas. Very cool, despite its commonness. (is this a word? If not, I just trademarked it) But that combination of M&Ms to the right of Xmas Blend....

...Yes, my friends, M&Ms has a blend for Kwanzaa. I was shocked to find it, and I quickly said to Steve "We definately have to take a picture of this!" And so we did, and it's currently on my phone as well. We started joking around about the possibility of a Hannukah Blend to complete the holiday blends, thinking at the time that milk chocolate wasn't kosher (we learned just today that this is false).

Literally a minute later, guess what we found? Because of the dissappointment of not being able to getr to play anything at Nintendo World and that Hello Deli was closed, Steve & I literally said that this made our trip. Freaking awesome. Steve said "If only M&Ms made a Ramadan blend..."

...No, they didn't make one, so stop wondering if I was gonna post a pic of that next.

One of my favorite pics of the whole trip, as we were leaving, two M&Ms mascots were suddenly outside posing with people! Left to right: Green, Steve, Myself, Sam, and Red. This is actually the 2nd attempt, as the first was botched by Steve, but luckily the M&Ms guy with the mascots was able to handle it. It's now my dislay pic.

Times Square at night, taken not too long after the M&Ms one. Pretty damn sweet if ya ask me, I like how this pic came out.

Before we left, we stopped at an actual Roy Rogers in Penn Station, to fufill my Fish Sandwich quest. Sadly, they didn't have one...but the Nathan's next to it did! Speaking of which, as of 3/28, I have to go to the Roy Rogers in Shirley and maybe try the Checker's Fish Screamer and I'll be done! There wasn't one at the A&W I went to, though, and I forgot about Arthur Treacher's, which I got on Tuesday.

Before I digress, I took this pic because I am a regular at X-Entertainment.com, and I know that a few fellow X-Ers read this, so I present the following pic:

Yes, the very same Fixin's bar, taken with a better camera and a more clear angle! It seems that this visit had the Fixin's better stocked, as the last tray had an abundance of lettuce, while mine...not so much. Matt's awesome like that.

...And that concludes my blog. These and many more of my pics can be found here. My next blog...Hmm, it may be in a few days to celebrate my Fish Sandwich success. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Just checked and as of 3/29, This blog now has over 10,000 Hits! Thanks you 6 obsessive people, I couldn't have done it without you!