Blogging While Paused

You know what is really, really stupid. That I’m not mayor.

I’ve be giving advice to a lot of horrible mayors for 35 years now, and I could do better than any one of them. I mean, I know all there is to know about the people in the city. I could talk for hours and hours about crime, pollution, fire, earthquakes, floods and what-not. But for some reason, I just can’t get elected. Maybe it’s the 44 hour speech seminars that I hold all the time in my campaigns for mayor. Yep, they must be a key factor in my loosing. I’ll go for 88 hour seminars next time.

Or could it be… I’m not popular. Let’s see here: Bad hair style, goofy colored hair, ugly tie, lame suit, enormous nose, crappy mustache, wide and misplaced ears,  beedy little eyes, bottle neck glasses… and I’m short. Not 5’7’’ short, 4’2’’ short. Well, that plus my annoying voice, endless stuttering, random fainting in front of crowds, random fainting for no reason, selfish look at life, and often giving speeches in ancient Greek, says one thing. I must be super popular.

So that says there’s only one way my competition is wining. They cheat. No wonder Waluigi got 69.9 times as many votes as me last election. Or how Bowser got 100% in four elections in a row, even though the world was telling him he was the worst mayor ever; he still has the “Worst leader of any kind” award in his house. Or that I lost to a Pikmin in the last election. By a long shot. It got 84% of votes, I got 2% and the no-longer-running Bowser got 14%. Maybe it would be better if more people than just me and one other “person” ran for mayor.

I know what I must do… I will… without a shadow of a shadow of a doubt… do the logical thing. I’m running for president of the United States of America in year 2008. Raise taxes, stop paying for cops, no more road repair, no more government jobs. It will be great.

Doctor Wright for President! My slogan… “Way better than the rest of these derelicts, that’s for sure.”

The pollution has gotten out of hand. Eventually the land value will drop and the crime rate will rise. To prevent this, why don’t you spread out your Industrial zones and keep them away from the Airport.

I… am… so… OLD!!! Look at me, I fought Cranky Kong when he was DK’s age. And he’s like 65 years older than DK or something. I had to be in my mid 30’s back then. Do da stinking math. I must be 100 years old!!!!!

This can’t be true!  Sure the entire world says I’m old, but come on! I can jump 25 ft in the air on a triple jump. I run faster than most other people. I lift hammers made out of pure carbonized anodized steel. I’ve lifted a dragon by the tail and chucked him 1,000ft into oblivion. I am considered an Olympic athlete in skill. I play a ton of sports. I Party like crazy. I may not be the youngest, most spry guy around, but PLEASE, 100 YEARS OLD!?!?!?

This is crazy. Madness. I am only 76 years old, not 117, not 120, and not 6,000! I will now call my lawyer, and he will set you all straight.

AND I’M NOT 100!!!

Hey, Mario! You’ll never guess what happened while you were out at the market this morning! Or were you jogging? Ah, I can’t remember. Anyway, while you were gone, a letter arrived from the Princess that said she’d been kidnapped by Bowser!

Well, since you weren’t around, I figured it was up to me to face Bowser at his castle and bring the Princess home safely. You should’ve seen the fight we had! There were fireballs and hammers flying every which way! Well, after some time, I came up with this brilliant plan. See, we were fighting on a bridge over a pool of lava, and I noticed next to the ropes supporting it, there was a fine looking axe. It was just sittin’ there, totally unguarded! So, watching Bowser’s movements carefully, I managed to distract him, then jump over him, grab the axe, and cut that rope! The bridge came down, and Bowser fell into the lava (which I’m sure was actually intended for me…).  He didn’t look particularly uncomfortable in there, but he couldn’t climb back out, so he was giving me a pretty chilling glare.

Well, normally this is the part of the story where the hero rescues the fair damsel and escorts her home in triumph, right? Well, I’ve come across a bit of a snag in things… See, I’m here with the Princess right now, but since the bridge is kind of out of service, we can’t get out. There’s no back door, or else I would have come in that way. Tunneling is out of the question (trust me—that’s why we don’t have the axe anymore). And even if we found a way back across the lava, not only is Bowser just waiting for his opportunity, but there’s a multitude of difficult jumps we’d both need to accomplish.

The Lakitu I’m talking to says he’ll have this message delivered in 6 to 8 weeks. (I hope he’s joking.) He recommended we survive by eating sawdust and chewing leather, neither of which we have access to. Who eats things like that anyway? I tried to upgrade delivery to the priority service, but he wanted 80 coins for that. Now I admit I snagged a few on the way over here, but avoiding a fiery fate at the hands of Bowser’s minions takes a few bribes, you know what I mean? Peach says she couldn’t manage to grab her purse before Bowser captured her, so she’s broke. I tried saying her crown would be worth at least 80, but he wouldn’t buy it. And, of course, he couldn’t ferry us out on his cloud, ‘cause that would only rank 8.5 out of 10 on his “Safety Scale”, which comes out to being only “Extremely Safe” and not “Perfectly Safe”. (Hey, you don’t think he’ll actually read the message that complains so much about him, do you?)

If you have any time or ideas, I’d really appreciate a quick visit from you right about now. I’ve got a single Gameboy Advance on me, so hopefully that’ll keep both of us well enough entertained for a while. (Please hurry—I think Peach likes to cheat in hot-seat mode.) I’m fairly sure I disabled most of the cannons when I came through, so your trip should be reasonably safe. Oh yeah, and don’t forget about Bowser on your way here. He might still be kinda mad.

By the way, has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Hope to see you sooner rather than later…

Luigi

Well, I’ve been a racer for quite a long time now, and I’ve seen my share of suspicious racers. A lot of them come out as clearly evil or just plain nuts, but there’s one guy who I just can’t shake this uneasy feeling about. He’s a fella who calls himself James McCloud.

Now at first I wasn’t sure what might be wrong with this guy. I never saw him without sunglasses, but that’s not too unusual. Still, I didn’t want to take my eyes off him. Then, at about the time I was ready to give up on finding out anything about him, who do I see for the first time? Who is it that dresses the same way he does? It’s a kid by the name of Fox McCloud.

Now, don’t think I thought it was him on sight. After all, James is a human, and Fox is, well, you know, anthropomorphic. Still, when I heard the kid’s name, I could tell there must be some kind of connection. I asked Fox if he had heard the name before, and he told me that was his dad’s name. His dead dad’s name.

This looked like a dry well to me. Can you imagine how awkward it would be to ask a fox if his dead dad was a human you’ve seen racing alongside you? Still, I felt like this deserved further investigation. I casually chatted with him and his crewmates, trying to subtly learn as much as I could. Turns out the James they knew dressed the same as Fox and always wore sunglasses, just like the James I know. But they also confirmed that he was a fox, not a human. I did get a little confused about how he died, whether it was a black hole or at the hands of some giant monkey thing, I—I don’t know.

After a number of trips back and forth for comparison I concluded that the racer James has been using looks very much like the ships the Star Fox team fly. The only difference is the way the wings are folded. Those Star Fox ships also happen to use the same kind of G-diffuser system that all our racers are required to use. I also found out from James that he has a young son that he’d like to get a racer for someday (but no way could I ask if that son was a fox, right?). Still, there are just enough holes here to keep me from deciding anything conclusive.

Finally, one last clue fell into my hands. I wasn’t snooping or spying to find this out; I just sort of came across it by accident. It turns out that just once, Fox saw his father, who saved him from a perilous situation. As soon as he was safe, his dad was gone. Others were around, but none of them saw him. He wasn’t transparent like a ghost. That’s the extent of what I know about it.

If all of this is a coincidence, it’s a very, very scary one.

This is an outrage! I looked at the Smash Bros blog a while ago, and you know what I found out? I’m not in the starting line-up. I’m not a secret character. I am an assist trophy.

Now at first this wasn’t all that terrible. At least they took the time to draw me with all that detail. They even got my good side. But you know what really did me in? Guess what I saw when I checked it two days ago? They added Pikmin & Olimar to the starting cast!

I mean, seriously! This is unbelievable! Did you read what he said about the Pikmin? Oh, yeah, and try this one on. You got a quarter? Go get a quarter. Hold it up. That’s how tall the space captain is. And the Pikmin are smaller. Come on! This guy has appeared twice since 2001, and I’ve been going at this so long, I—

You know what it is? Every game I’ve ever appeared in could be labeled a spin-off. No adventures. I mean, you could call my appearance in Mario Tennis for the Gameboy an adventure, but ALL the Mario series characters were pretty much making cameo appearances in that one! And my part was humiliating. I sounded like a snake! “Yeessss… Thaaas-a riiiight…” What’d I tell ya? Humiliating.

But what? Did they think they were lacking for moves or something? Look at all the stuff I’ve done! I spin like a tornado. I cause thorny plants to grow from nowhere. I lie and cheat. I set nasty traps. I steal. I clunk people with disguised eggplants. I swim! Into the air! I was even going to be the antagonist in Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, but that never even got off the ground! That’s surely enough to draw four special moves from! Wario made the starting line-up, and he FARTS!

You know something else? I don’t get this bit of confusion at all. There are some sources that say just like Luigi (lousy no-good spotlight stealin’ little…) is Mario’s twin brother, I, too, am Wario’s brother. Other sources say I am not. Are you kiddin’ me? This one is totally obvious!

Maybe they’re accusing me of being under-developed as a character. But really, how much do you know about any Mario series character? Age? More than one family member? I think they used to tell us about stuff they liked… maybe. And any game that involves the kind of talking that requires you to read it, then press A (say, Super Mario 64) or shows text on-screen while characters speak it (Super Mario Sunshine), big high and mighty mister Mario doesn’t say a blasted thing! And Luigi’s (spineless cheese-lovin’ puny little…) voice wasn’t what it is now until Mario Kart 64. And there’s been confusion since then (his voice is the previous Smash Bros games was just a speeded-up version of Mario’s). And I’m under-developed?

The release date for the new Smash Bros game was already pushed back once, but don’t be surprised if it happens again. I do have this new bubble gum bomb I’ve been dying to try. Heh heh heh heh…. Watch your back!

So I was out golfing the other day and apparently people are saying that my whole “Kidnap the Princess” gig is getting old. It’s not fun anymore, it’s not funny. It’s not politically correct. I don’t know. I don’t know if I trust Donkey Kong and Yoshi as great sources, but every now and then they get something right.

To be honest, I love the gig. I think it’s freaking hilarious to see the look on Mario’s face when he realizes… “oh not again.” I mean, my timing is perfect. It’s just like the punch line of a joke. Just when he’s about to go spend some quality time with Peach, BAM! I’m there, and I make him jump through somewhere between 38 and 120 hoops before he can see her.

I also love the Toadstools.  They rush around like caffeinated chickens with their heads cut off. It’s really funny. I’m not going to lie, I spend hours on YouTube just watching the Toadstools run around in circles like the world is going to end.

I mean, the kidnapping is usually all in good fun. Mario and I know how to get along, somedays I’m just in a really bad mood and really just want to make someone angry. But maybe the next day I’m over it and the two of us go out and play a round or two of tennis. It’s no big deal. It’s just the way I do things. I’m sure you understand.

So really, I don’t care if anyone thinks my gig is getting old. It’s usually the most fun thing I do. Nothing relieves stress like kidnapping a princess, let me tell you that. So hey, don’t look for me to stop. It’s kinda like Charlie Brown. He’d always run to the football and Lucy always pulls it away. Every time Mario gets close to Peach, I’m going to pull her away. Why? It’s fun and that’s all there is to it.

Living with Pikmin is a love-hate relationship. The little critters are cute, completely adorable. They are also extremely helpful when trying to accomplish various tasks, such as carrying things. Sadly, they are dumber then a bag of sand.

However, one can only assume that they have the intelligence of a vegetable when you realize you have to pluck the things out of the ground before they can do anything and after you pluck them out they proceed to bash their heads against every solid object in sight. It’s no surprise that they all have applesauce for brains.

When scrounging around for pellets of compressed dehydrated Pikmin, or whatever they are, one might hope that the Pikmin would have a certain affinity or attraction to pellets of their own color. You know, the blue ones pick up the blue pellet and the red ones theirs, etc. This is sadly, never the case. If I find that I have a yellow pellet to take back to an onion, it will inevitably be taken by a blue or red Pikmin despite the fact I only called yellow ones to follow me. On the off chance it is grabbed by a yellow Pikmin, a blue one will undoubtably try to help out and in their wisdom they will carry it to the red onion.

Blue Pikmin are my favorite. I say this because you can take them anywhere you want without much worry. True, you must be careful of fire-ish things, but those are usually fairly easy to avoid. It’s true, red Pikmin are nice because they are a bit stronger, but bashing their heads against walls all day does something to their brains. It gives them a forgetfulness that is usually found in various species of canine. Just as a dog will forget everything it’s ever learned if it picks up the scent of a rabbit, one sight of an enemy and the red Pikmin will gleefully chase it into the water and promptly drown.  Yellow Pikmin, on the other hand are good for two things: blowing up large quantities of Pikmin and I don’t remember what the second thing was. Oh yes, blowing up themselves.

I may seem a bit harsh on the poor little critters, but trust me. If I didn’t have to babysit them all day long I could have escaped from the planet in under 10 days. Less then a week even! If they would only learn, just a little bit… just a tiny bit, I could simply set up chore lists for them to accomplish and have a set of each of them working all day at several landing sites and they could bring the pieces and set them right where I land my ship and I could go around and collect ship parts all day. Sadly, Pikmin do not learn. Not even a little bit. They are as stupid on day 30 as they are on day 1. I tried to teach them. I showed them examples. I did similar tasks with them over and over and over again. Each time they approached the ordeal as if it were an entirely new experience for them.

It’s hard to believe I survived 30 days with those creatures. It’s maddening, trying work with them. I think in 30 days I would be much more likely to die of a nervous breakdown then being exposed to Oxygen. Hopefully I’ll never have the chance to find out, right?

Abandon Ship! A ship has crashed somewhere! Let’s find out what happened and repair any damage it may have caused.

Geeklog Date: 11.26
Mood: Ranty

The sun is bright outside so I’m going to stay in and watch “The Blubbening.” Season One has better writing and voice acting than the later seasons. I mean COME ON. Everything went totally downhill after the big dream sequence. Still, the animation in the scenes where Tubba Blubba battles robots is schweet. Season Three was obviously just a vehicle for selling action figures and vehicles. I never understood why they changed the sound effect when the princess appears. It was “Deet-dinga-deet-ling!” then suddenly it was “Dinga-deet-dinga-ling!” As if no one would notice! Pffft! True fans care about important stuff like that. They should totally run the show without commercials and let fans suggest story lines! That’s what the fans want and we’re the only ones that matter. I guess I’ll still buy “The Blubbening” box set. The preorder bonus is a costume! While I wait for it to come, I’ll go online and tell everyone it’s stupid.