Friday, September 26, 2014

In case you've ever wondered what the Nintendo originally looked like - the Famicom

Then again, every gamer probably knows what it looks like already, but I still think it's worth posting.

Credit: Evan-Amos (via)
I like the holders on the side for the controllers. Those would have been a nice addition to the NES over either just leaving them where they lie or wrapping the cord around them. Speaking of controllers, the one docked to the console is different than the other. No Select or Start buttons, but it has a built in mic, along with a volume control. Apparently this was soon done away with and the second controller became identical to the first. They were both also originally hardwired into the Famicom itself before Nintendo changed that too.

I heard once that the reason why Nintendo designed the NES differently is because they believed that American consumers wouldn't take the console seriously unless it was bigger. No idea if that's true, but honestly, I'm willing to believe it is.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

In which I list my favorite Kevin Smith movies

1. Mallrats.
(via)
I like Mallrats because it's just a funny movie with an oddball plot. Brodie and T.S. spend an entire day in a mall and later, an indoor flea market (or dirt mall, as T.S. calls it). In that time they help derail a knockoff of The Dating Game, get several people arrested, meet a fortune teller with a third nipple, and win back their girlfriends. Not bad for a day. The cameo by Stan Lee is nice, as is the comic book references. The running gag with Silent Bob constantly crashing through things while Joey Lauren Adam's character is trying on clothes in dressing rooms always gets me laughing.


2. Dogma.
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I could have easily put Dogma at the top spot instead of Mallrats, so consider this a tie between the two. What's not to love about this movie? You have Chris Rock as a forgotten apostle, Alan Rickman as Metatron, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as fallen angels trying to destroy existence by creating a contradiction in the infallible Word of God. Also, Jay and Silent Bob are prophets, while Alanis Morissette is God. Fucking fantastic.

One of the things about Dogma that is so interesting is that at the time, Kevin Smith was a lapsed Catholic and beginning to question weighty things like religion and faith. You can see that in the movie with such things as the last scion (Linda Fiorentino) working at an abortion clinic and a woman playing God. I think Dogma is a heavier, deeper movie than the rest of Smith's movies, at least the ones I've seen.

3. Clerks.
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I picked up the 10th anniversary edition of Clerks up 10 years ago, fittingly enough. It's a good movie that was funny, but not in the same way that Mallrats or Jay and Silent Bob were. The humor here was more absurd and in the case of what happens with Dante's ex-girlfriend, black. Speaking of Dante, the original ending to the movie where he's killed in an armed robbery is interesting, but I'm glad Kevin Smith didn't go with it. My favorite part though will always be Dante and Randall's debate about the culpability of the contractors working on the Second Death Star in Return of the Jedi and whether they deserved to die or not.

4-10. Everything else. It's not that I dislike the rest of Kevin Smith's movies, but simply because I like the above three more or haven't seen all of them, like Chasing Amy, which I want to.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Someone created a 3D model of Milo Manara's Spider-Woman pose...and it is the stuff of nightmares

Credit: imgur/reddit/the darkest pits of the abyss
That's um...that's pretty fucking terrifying, dude. Can you imagine being a supervillain and seeing that crawling towards you? You'll never be the same again.