Warlocks everywhere cry out, “Who is this clown?”

Charlie Sheen–former star of long-running televised train-wreck “Two and a Half Men”, tiger blood enthusiast, and all-around winner at everything–has been making claims recently that have raised some concerns among the actual Warlock community.

“Look,” one Warlock said, adjusting his pointy hat and looking generally displeased.  “You can’t just let anyone run around saying ‘Oh, look, I’m a Warlock.’  It doesn’t work that way.”

“What my colleague is trying to say,” another Warlock added, “is that there are standards.  Procedures.  You can’t very well just say ‘I’m a Warlock’ and it is so.  We have all traveled to some layer of Hell and back.  We have seen things that would reduce most people to drooling husks of their former selves.  He’s making a mockery of everything we stand for, and it’s kind of offensive.”  He averts his gaze, clearly wiping away a tear.

“I bet he’s never even been to Hell,” the one Warlock said, petting a small demon he called forth by sacrificing a small child.  “It’s quite lovely this time of year, mind you.  Hell, I mean.  You’ve got to wear sound-canceling headphones, though, or your ears will be bleeding in no time.”

Efforts to organize such as “Warlocks Against Charlie Sheen”, “Real Warlocks United”, and “Please, Oh God, Please Take Him Back CBS We Don’t Need Him Sullying Our Good Name” have all failed because Warlocks’ tend to suffer from extreme bouts of paranoia which typically end in murdering one another.

In similar news, rumor has it that Blizzard will be replacing the Warlock’s Destruction tree with an entirely new Charlie Sheen Tiger’s Blood tree.  Sources say that Destruction’s removal is largely because “only pussies roll Destro anyway.”

Why I’d be an Epic President

Or “Why The American People Should Make this Terribly Ill-Informed Decision to Elect a Complete Jackass (How is this a New Concept Again?)”, whichever you’d prefer.  Now, I weighed the pros and cons of writing a meaningful, well-thought President’s Day post, even if I’m a couple days late.  Then I realized it was just another one of those holidays that gave you ungrateful bastards three day weekends while I spend quality time in college, accruing debt and laughing at drunk people as they make poor decisions.  I mean, seriously, who needs alcohol to make poor decisions anymore?  Not this guy.

Instead of writing a long-ass post about how every president you know and love is a lying, thieving no-good-son-of-a-bitch (Eat your hearts out, you Fox News junkies), this will be a medium-length post on why I would be an amazing president (up until anyone with any sense of responsibility, duty, morals, or sanity throws me off the Whitehouse).

The First Family will be the First Family of the United States of Awesome. I’m not bogged down by a wife, children, or any pesky mistresses like most of these political types.  When I go out in public it will be with my inner circle comprised of cyborg bodyguards, ninjas, and the first dog will be a genetically modified wolverine that breathes fire.  Why?  Because people won’t think, “Oh, there’s the Pres and his family taking a pleasant stroll” as I go by and every member of the Secret Service loses their goddamn mind over where I may or may not be.  Oh, no.  People will piss their pants.  Hail to the chief, fools.

Republican or Democrat? Or this guy.  You can take those two parties and combine them in whatever way makes you vote for me.  Reublicrat?  Sure, why not.  Third party?  Let me level with you: nobody you guys ever try getting in office will get anywhere.  I mean, except for Ralph Nader, and that’s in the “he’s only getting closer to the grave” way.

Pundits aren’t above pandering. News pundits have a pretty solid following.  Just look at that Jon Stewart guy, that Stephen Colbert fellow, and whatever the hell Glenn Beck is*.  Droves of people who hang on their every word.  My solution?  I won’t be above pandering to the American people.  Sure, that may mean one or two…or twelve fart jokes thrown in a state of the union, but I’m willing to go the distance**.

I’ll be a President of the people. I’ll show it through bitchin’ photographic evidence.  Me helping bring peace to the Middle East?  Facebooked.  Mr. President Gorski (the new title will be Mr. President the Revered and Almighty, by the way; memorize it, people, because there will be a quiz later) helping to bring jobs to the jobless?  Check out my Twitter.  That hunting trip that Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh invited me on?  Sorry, guys, had a prior engagement, but you’ll all be happy to know that my Vice President only sustained minor injuries; nothing that couldn’t be fixed with Silly Putty and 100 proof whiskey.

Promises are meant to be kept. I won’t make promises I know I can’t keep.  Sure, everyone wants world peace, an end to famine, an end to major diseases, and other things of that nature.  I could take to the podium and say, “Hey, I’m going to fix everything ever.”  Can I?  Hell no.  What do you people think I am, some sort of miracle-worker?  I’ll be that realistic friend that helps the American people accept that, sure, you couldn’t make it into Harvard, but at least you didn’t get stuck going to Community College.  I may not bring an end to war, but I sure as hell won’t have a problem sending everyone to that Harry Potter addition to Disney on China’s dime.  I figure if we’re not so far into debt to China by the end of my presidency that everyone’s living in soup cans and driving mouse-drawn chariots, I’ve done something wrong.

Presidents have some defining characteristic. I’ll be upping the ante by one-upping all of those dead bastards.  Sure, some of them never lied, some of them chopped down cherry trees, and some of them were pretty keen on breaking and entering or magical podiums.  Cutting down cherry trees?  I’ll cut down a forest with a plasma torch while robed in Smokey the Bear’s pelt.  Never lying?  Wouldn’t you like to know.  Paul Ekman will be hired on and paid a quarter every time I spout a line of utter garbage.  By this reasoning, Dr. Ekman will be the richest man alive by my second day in office.  Good luck writing catchy folk-songs about my presidential antics, fools.

Rest easy knowing I would never consider even contemplating going into politics.  I have more than enough fun writing fiction without the threat of being called a communist-fascist-socialist-whatever.

* Years and years in the future, scholars will still be pondering this mystery of life.

** Note to self: replace my speech writers with the writers from various Adult Swim shows to better serve these purposes.

Sonic 4: Episode 1, or How to Waste $14.99 on a Bad Decision

The Sonic the Hedgehog series, for me, is kind of like a band that you really love.  They started out great, even if they had their frustrating moments, and kept me coming back for more.  They changed things up a little bit with the Dreamcast installments, but it didn’t deviate from the original that I enjoyed for so long.  Then, like often will happen, the “band” broke up–in the form of Sega going bankrupt, as the Dreamcast was apparently easy as hell to pirate games for–and so that died for a while.  Sure, there were periodic singles, if you will, in the form of Gameboy games and the remakes of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 for the Gamecube, but it lacked the original feel.  Then was the comeback tour–Sonic 4: Episode 1–which was an announcement that truly surprised me.  Sonic would be revisiting his side-scrolling, sidekick-free roots in a game that continues where Sonic 3 and Knuckles (what I maintain is still the best Sonic game ever, though I am horribly biased) left off.  All of this in gorgeous, high-definition graphics?  When I first read about it, nostalgia had me in a “no-price-is-too-high” mentality, and I may or may not have considered offering Sonic Team my firstborn son (or, in lieu of not having a son, stealing someone else’s son as a viable substitute) as payment for this wonderful step back into my childhood.
And then I stopped reading gaming magazines and forgot it existed until last night, when I caved and purchased it on Playstation Network.  Let’s resume the horribly conceived band metaphor for a second (Yes, it was bad; I know.  Take a breather, go dunk your eyes in some bleach, and resume reading).  This was supposed to be the epic reunion tour you’d been waiting so long for.  Got tickets weeks in advance, counted down the days, got there five hours early…and discovered that, through some cruel joke the universe chose to play on you, the singers were all now tone-deaf, the band members had become bloated and painful to look at, and the music ranged somewhere between Ke$ha and “cats and silverware in a blender” (“But Phil, aren’t they the same thing?”  Shut up, inner troll; that’s another post for another time, perhaps).

Starting off, I felt the immediate wave of nostalgia.  By the end of Level 2, Act 1, I was starting to have doubts.  And then there were a million needless bottomless pits that resulted in, what I imagine, may have been the most legendary string of expletives I have ever produced in my life.  The only other video game I have played that made me swear this much is Demon’s Souls, and at least that’s supposed to be mind-meltingly frustrating.

Let’s look at the pros first, as to help maintain that this game isn’t a total failure to its legacy.  Sonic 4′s level design is fantastic, at face-value.  The PS3 graphics mesh with the side-scrolling gameplay and create aesthetically pleasing results.  Overall, the journey from level 1 up to, and through, the final boss, is a short but sweet one, and feels reminiscent of the old Sonic games (as Sonic Team intended).

Here’s the problem, though; I shouldn’t, as a gamer and a fan of this franchise, have to spend more time wanting to like a game than actually liking it.  That’s exactly what happened.  For all of the fun I had playing…level 1, I had to put about three times that effort into trying to like the rest of the game.  I have yet to complete the final stage, as it borders onto controller-breaking frustration for me. Spare me the “u r teh suck at gaming” comments, fools.  You can only do so much with the controls your given.  However, it becomes very easy to spot how each stage is essentially a pretty, and somewhat pathetic, amalgamation of stages from Sonic 1, 2, and 3.  If it’s not broke, don’t fix it; just don’t charge fifteen bucks for the same damn thing.

Then there’s the controls.  My god, what controls those are.  Things are kept pretty simple, as they should be with a Sonic game, and consist largely of moving with the control stick or the directional pad.  You jump, or spin-dash, with X, O, Square, or Triangle.  Where it gets goofy as hell is when you think you’re pressing down and prepping to speed across the screen and the end-result you get is an unfortunate jump.  Those auto-target jumping and mid-air dash should have remained relics of the Sonic Adventure games (and, perhaps, the DS installments; perhaps).  In a 2-D playing field, they only act as means to aggravate.  Specifically, the auto-target jumping.  This made trying the under-one-minute run of Stage 1, Act 1 into a nightmare for me.  I will pause, for a moment, and consider the possibility that I am doing it wrong.

The bosses were…meh.  I mean that as “somewhere between acceptable and mediocre, with a touch of shittiness here and there”.  The original wrecking ball boss makes an appearance (I won’t lie, I had a fanboy moment that has rendered me unable to look myself in the mirror without feeling some level of shame).  Then it’s a revived boss from Casino Night (Sonic 2), some horrifying combination of the Mystic Cave boss (Sonic 2) and the Aquatic Ruin boss (also Sonic 2), followed by some terrible revamp of what seemed like a combination of the Metropolis Zone boss (Sonic 2 again) and the final boss of Sonic Chaos (one of the Game Gear installments).  I never realized I could pack so much nerd into one paragraph, but there you have it.  I haven’t made it to the final boss yet, as mentioned above.

Overall, the game feels like a huge letdown.  Unless Sonic 4: Episode 2 is a huge improvement, it better end with a sad scene involving Sonic being taken off life support and being declared dead.  In closing, I feel it only appropriate to give a list of things I would rather have done with $14.99 instead of spending it on this game.

• Purchase three-week old ham sandwich that’s been sitting on a sidewalk
• Betting a particularly stupid person $14 that they won’t eat 99 cents in change
• Setting the money on fire; I’d find a way to do so with the change
• Start a savings account in order to purchase an N-Gage (I kid; nothing’s THAT bad)
• Go to a 3D movie (really, you people love your gimmicks far too much)

Little-Known Valentine’s Day Facts*

In light of it being Valentine’s Day, and in favor of posting something other than a whiskey-soaked rant about how sappy couples make me die a little inside (let’s not rule that out as a possibility for later, of course), I thought I should share a couple little-known facts* about Valentine’s Day.  Complete with meaningful, informative footnotes.

• The celebration of Valentine’s Day dates back to prehistoric times.  The first official Valentine’s Day couple was the earth and a rather amorous asteroid; the dinosaurs, being quite the third wheel, were cramping the couple’s style and were dealt with accordingly.
• Cave paintings depict images of a yearly ceremony during which the happiest couple of a community is paraded around, showered in selections from the local flora, and then cast off the nearest cliff.  This practice was believed to help ensure a less insufferable year.  This practice still occurs in some parts of the United States to this day.
• The Boston Tea Party–the date of which has been the subject of dispute by scholars for quite some time**–was the colonists’ way of trying to share a romantic tea-and-biscuit snack with the king of Britain.  The colonists failed to realize what is now obvious (that being that you never try brewing tea in the ocean as it is full of unsavory things);  Britain threw a tantrum, the colonists decided that they should “see other people”, and there would later be a mutual defriending on Facebook.
• In some tribal cultures, the “valentine” is representative of an evil spirit that causes its recipient to turn into a drooling husk of their former self.  A medicine man, shaman, or witch–depending upon the culture–will create “valentines” for the low cost of the buyer’s firstborn.  The “valentine” is then given to ones enemy, or sold to a major American greeting card company for a less-than-impressive profit.
• Other tribal rituals involve the man cutting out his heart and handing it to his love-interest, who then takes the heart and purees it into a tasteful soup.  Or places it in some dirt and repeatedly clubs it with a large rock.
• Other than humans, bears are also known to enjoy a Valentine’s Day picnic.  It consists of a happy couple of bears taking a trip to a rural community, where they dine on a happy couple of humans.  An ideal bear Valentine’s Day involves there being some of the human couple’s dinner left, as nothing takes the taste of human out of one’s mouth like a good steak and a carefully selected wine***.

So there you have it.  A couple enjoyable facts* for Valentine’s Day.  Go forth, enjoy your over-priced chocolates and flowers (enraged hornets cost extra), and be sure to vomit your rainbows away from me.  Otherwise we may have to start a new Valentine’s Day tradition, in which I set happy couples on fire.

*Facts being used for its lesser-known meaning of “complete and utter bullshit I made up out of boredom”

**No actual scholars were available for their opinions, and so I substituted my own

***Or so I’ve been told, at least.

Purged by fire (and deleting)

Hours ago, I decided to try out some Gentleman Jack (and Coke).  This lead to the decision that just drinking is not enough, so I should partake in some writing while drinking (which later was diverted to playing poker and drinking, though this is somewhat irrelevant).

After much screwing around with a blank Microsoft Word document, I came to the conclusion I should totally write a blog entry.  On what?  Well, that hadn’t been determined.  Then I logged onto WordPress and was immediately reminded as to how disorganized this thing is…

What the next week or so, probably leaning more towards the “or so” given my workload (college, thou art a needy bitch), I will be reorganizing Pengy Press Productions.  Possibly by trying to just move shit into new categories.  Or just by taking the typical, simplified, “Kill it with fire” approach.  Whatever seems more appealing at the time.

In the mean-time, reader (or readers?), enjoy the semi-intentional blank space.

Ding!

It’s a pretty well-known fact that I’m a gamer.  Maybe a gaming addict, if you really want to go that far (and yes, most of the people I know would).  Clearly, I didn’t set up my laptop with an HD display, 6 gigs of memory, and so on, so I could type up MS Word documents in impressive graphics.  About a month back, I was in Gamestop.  You know, trying to find something worth wasting some of my paycheck on.  I didn’t leave with a bag, but I left with a receipt.  To answer the all-important question as to what the receipt was for…

I preordered Cataclysm.  In case that needs spelled out for some of you, that means one thing.  I have embraced the object of my derision: I play World of Warcraft.

But Pengy, you hate WoW.  You made fun of friends who play WoW on a regular basis, you made fun of it as a game, and you pretty much swore you’d sooner throw yourself off a building before accepting it as a game.  Incidentally, I won’t be throwing myself off of a building.  Sorry if I got any hopes up on that one.

Basic summary of why I started playing goes as follows.  I picked up StarCraft II: Collector’s Edition, which has a Mini Thor pet.  Not worth paying $15 a month for a game, I figured.  Then, one faithful day as I tried reinstalling my copy of Diablo 2 (Windows 7 seems to HATE Diablo 2 and old Battle.net).  My account decided it would be really cool to start up my free 10 Day Trial of WoW.  I’m an extremely cheap person, and I wasn’t about to let something free go to waste.  So began the debate to try WoW, which turned into me eventually getting World of Warcraft, as well as the two expansions.

Is it worth it?  Hell yes, it’s worth it.  I don’t play it any more than I would play other video games (something equally disappointing, I should note), the lore is pretty damn interesting, and being able to abuse a paladin or two online is pretty entertaining.  Worth $15 a month?  I’ll waste my money as I see fit.  To wrap this up…:

I’m CrazedPenguin, and I’m a Human Warlock.  Or a Troll Shaman, depending on which server I’m currently dying on.

So many Pokemon, so little time…

The idea of throwing multi-colored spheres at bizarre creatures with clever names: boiled down to the basics, that’s what Pokemon is, has been, and always will be.  I say this in jest.

Pokemon Platinum, the latest release in the series and the Pokemon Yellow/Crystal/Emerald equivalent to the Diamond and Pearl versions, was released to hordes of awaiting fans (in America, at least) on March 22nd.  With over 400 Pokemon, as opposed to the good old days with 150 (plus Mew), among other additions, the Pokemon games have certainly changed over the years.  Platinum is evidence that these changes have, for the most part, been improvements.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories is less-than-memorable

When I heard about Kingdom Hearts, the collaboration of Disney and Squaresoft, I cringed. Mickey Mouse fighting alongside Final Fantasy characters, which would invariably find their way into this game, sounded awful beyond all reason. Throw some Teletubbies in and every kid should love it, right? Well, going against my intuition, I bought Kingdom Hearts, played it, and loved it. Then there was Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, for the Gameboy Advance, followed by Kingdom Hearts II. For those rabid fans who went that extra mile and procured them, there are Final Mix versions of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II with all sorts of extras.

I promise that there’s a reason for all of this rambling, and I’m getting to that. Kingdom Hearts started off a long line of sequels and side-games, more of which are still on the way at some point in the future, and I have to ask this: really, Square-Enix? Isn’t it about time to move on to something else?

Making life as a Survivor interesting.

Left 4 Dead, for anyone who has been living under a rock for quite some time now, is Valve’s take on the Zombie Horror/Survival gaming genre.  Players control four Survivors who must make their way through different settings–rural to once-populated cities–in order to get rescued, fending off the Horde of Infected, and a handful of Special Infected, along the way.  It’s as if Resident Evil and George Romero’s movies were thrown together, combining their better points and removing their less favorable ones.  Left 4 Dead isn’t perfect, but it’s an excellent game.

However, barring the short review of a few aspects of this game that will follow, this entry’s purpose is to give players a few ways to have a little more fun with gameplay.

Your ideas: handle with care

During one of my English classes, the professor brought up a writer’s tendency to become so enthusiastic about an idea or concept that he or she has that he absolutely has to share it.  He then explained how, more often than not, by sharing the idea in detail you are essentially letting it go too soon.  How it is essential to keep that idea inside, and to nurture, or “mother it,” as he put it.  He’s right, and this got me thinking: how, exactly, can one nurture and, well, “mother” an idea properly in order for it to “grow up” and reach its full potential?  Let us explore the possibilities as to how writers can properly nurture their ideas.