FLAPJACKS: Hey, do you remember that song “Friday” by Rebecca Black? The really bad one? It was famous.
ME: Yes, I remember that song. I have tried to put it well out of mind, but sadly I have failed.
FLAPJACKS: Well, guess what?
ME: She has a new song?
FLAPJACKS: No!
ME: Good.
FLAPJACKS: But the sleazy company that put out her song has made one that is arguably even worse!
ME: Oh lord.

FLAPJACKS: We begin with a Chinese man talking Chinese over phat synth beats, as one does.
ME: Also I note that this owner of the ostensible Chinese restaurant is cooking noodles on a Mongolian grill. So Alison Gold is apparently in favour of fusion cuisine.
FLAPJACKS: That would certainly explain why the noodles are glittering and emitting rainbows.
ME: I think that’s just how Korean food works. ALL THE ASIAN FOODS IN ONE RESTAURANT!
FLAPJACKS: There is something inherently creepy about a 14-year-old girl singing about heading home after a night of clubbing. She’s fourteen. Is she supposed to be a baby-raver? Where is her glitter pacifier?
ME: You’re complaining both that her song lyric is creepy and then asking where her pacifier is, you realize.
FLAPJACKS: Only ironically.
ME: I bet Miley Cyrus says she is being ironical all the time.
FLAPJACKS: Oh man she is kicking over a trashcan because she’s SO MAD about being hungry. Alison is punk, y’all.
ME: Her lip-syncing is awful in this video. She goes from not actually being able to lip-sync along with the lines she supposedly sings to lip-syncing along with the HEY-shouters in the background of the chorus.
FLAPJACKS: I’m more impressed with how the girl taking her order is totally stoked to be working in food service. Look at her. She is so excited that this white girl has come in and is pointing excitedly at what she wants to order, presumably because said white girl thinks there is a language barrier and cannot simply say what she wants in case the strange foreigner doesn’t understand proper English, even when sung.
ME: Why would the order-taking girl be excited about that?
FLAPJACKS: I don’t know, but I don’t judge people for enjoying their work.
ME: She definitely operates that cash register like a touch-typist. That’s impressive.
FLAPJACKS: I see we’re at the “point at the different types of Chinese food” part of the video, where she names all the Chinese foods she can think of.
ME: So… broccoli, chicken wings, egg rolls, wonton soup and fortune cookies.
FLAPJACKS: I know I was making fun of her for being white before, but man, that is so white. All that’s missing are the sweet-and-sour chicken balls.
ME: …why is she befriending a man in a panda suit oh god this suddenly became terrifying
FLAPJACKS: Look, I’m sure there is a perfectly rational explanation for why they are… uh… skipping through the park together and frolicking… okay, this is definitely weird…
ME: OH GOD THEY ARE HAVING A TICKLE-FIGHT ON THE GRASS THIS IS SOME BIZARRE LOLITA SHIT RIGHT HERE
FLAPJACKS: Don’t worry, it turns out that Panda Suit Guy is actually just ARK Music Factory’s house rapper.
ME: House rapper?
FLAPJACKS: You know how restaurants have a house wine, something not fancy but which will go down acceptably enough with your meal and isn’t too expensive? ARK Music Factory has a house rapper for the parents of the kids who pay for these awful videos. The theory is roughly equivalent.
ME: OH MY GOD IS HE RAPPING IN A FAKE CHINESE ACCENT
FLAPJACKS: …yes, yes he is.
ME: WHY DID YOU MAKE ME WATCH THIS OH GOD MY SENSES SO MANY PAINS
FLAPJACKS: Oh look, they’re playing Monopoly and he landed on Oriental Avenue.
ME: AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH
FLAPJACKS: Also, what is the deal with all these subtitles? Why are they all in different languages? Are they hoping that this will give the song “international appeal”?
ME: “Look, Alison Gold’s Parents, we know you’re spending your life savings on this video and you want to hit as many markets as possible. We’re going to do that by translating each line of the song into a different language. Then all those foreigners will see the translations of their one line of the song and teach themselves English so they can enjoy the whole song. We have charts demonstrating this.”
FLAPJACKS: “Can we see the – ”
ME: “DO NOT ASK TO SEE THE CHARTS. TRUST THE FACTORY. TRUST THE SECRET CHARTS.”
FLAPJACKS: Aaaaaaand now they’re all dressed up as geishas because all Asians are the same!
ME: I note that Alison Gold’s signature dance move is the “half-hearted shrug.”
FLAPJACKS: And the video ends with the panda flying away on a rainbow, after tossing Alison a fortune cookie with a fortune that says the panda will fly away on a rainbow.
ME: “In bed.”
FLAPJACKS: FORTUNE COOKIES ARE NEVER WRONG!
ME: But fortune cookies don’t work that way! They’re not supposed to tell you what already happened, they’re supposed to tell you the future.
FLAPJACKS: Or compliment you in a sort of kiss-ass way.
ME: “In bed.”
FLAPJACKS: But I was right, wasn’t I? I mean, this was a must watch video about food.
ME: Eh. It’s no Pizza Kids.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

This is where we’re going to depart from the main narrative for a moment because Davinder needs time to concentrate on his real-life job. However, starting next week, we are going to have an exciting BONUS STORY set in the world of Al’Rashad, written by me and with art by the talented Adam Prosser. It will be fun! I am sure of this.

…is here. Head-to-head categories, twelve slots (nine left at this point), standard draft (currently scheduled for evening of Friday the 25th). Pretty straightforward, all things considered. If you like fantasy basketball (“it’s like fantasy football, but you don’t have to let it consume your damn life”), then join up and so forth.

UPDATE: Yahoo software is silly with joining renewed leagues, so if you want to play, just email me and I’ll send you an invite.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

daaaaaaaaaaamn that is what I call some motherfucking moviemaking right there, man

(aside: this is the only live-action film I have ever seen in 3D where I felt the 3D enhanced the film as opposed to being at best value-neutral or at worst actively detracting from the movie experience)

Ironclad Tactics: It’s an interesting design, a mix of tactical combat and deckbuilding that isn’t like a lot of games on the market, but you can only release some cards by playing with friends and there’s no central server so I have to schedule games with my existing Steam friends, most of whom don’t own the game. This is the sort of game where a public lobby is basically necessary and there is not that thing. Maybe they will add one because it is still in development? I hope? Because that would make it a lot better.

Jamestown: I love shmups but I am terrible at shmups. Like, back when I was twelve we had a sit-down arcade cabinet version of 1943 in the coffee shop near school and I played that thing to death and I never stopped sucking at it. Twenty-five years later, absolutely nothing has changed. Jamestown is gorgeous and clearly very detailed in its gameplay, so far as I can tell from watching other people get much further in it on Youtube than I will ever get because I keep blowing up.

Alan Wake: hey look it’s a shitty story AND a shitty game, that’s an innovative twist

Guacamelee!: The visual design of the game is fun. The fighting is fun. The endless jumping puzzles are challenging and much less fun than the fighting, and there are a lot more jumping puzzles than there is fighting, which: I get that it is a platformer, but it is a platformer about a luchador fighting the King of the Dead, and the crucial “fight/jump” balance is off in the wrong direction entirely.

Deadlight: “What if the original 2D Prince of Persia was a zombie game?” “Then it would be okay.”

Spelunky HD: This is interesting in contrast to Jamestown and Guacamelee in that I traditionally excel at platformers but I am awful at Spelunky. Granted, it’s a combination platformer/roguelike, but I like roguelikes too and… man, I suck at this game so hard. It’s kind of embarrassing. Every time I die it’s from the stupidest goddamn thing. “Oh, you didn’t see the arrow shooter trap? Dead.” “Oh, yeah, spider death. Probably shoulda jumped on that all Mario style, but you screwed it up.” I glanced at the Spelunky wiki at one point to see what some item did and was shocked to see how deep the game goes and how far I was from playing it even half-competently.

King of Fighters XIII: I will not drop $80 on a USB arcade stick. I will not drop $80 on a USB arcade stick. I will not drop $80 on a USB arcade stick.

McPixel: The joy of games like Wario Ware is that usually you can intuitively figure out what you’re supposed to do in the brief time frame allotted to you. McPixel decides to instead make your objective deliberately obtuse. I am not sure why they did this exactly. Maybe they don’t want people to have fun playing their game? That would be bold level design, I suppose.

Sepulchre: The developer and author explain that they wanted to make a “true” horror game because all those other horror games rely on shock and that’s not real horror, real horror is the sense of creeping dread, like in this game where the shocking twist is like the least shocking twist ever when it comes to horror fiction and also the voice acting is kinda bad and, let’s be honest, “creeping dread” and “bad pixel art” do not exactly go hand in hand. On the other hand, it is free, so you get what you pay for almost.

Gunpoint: I got to the point where you pick your ending and I stopped because I can’t make up my mind. Other than that this is a great little game with lots of neat mechanics, good writing and decent retro graphics that are simple without being all HEY LOOK WE DID BLOCKY PIXELS because god, I am sick to death of pixel games being pixel games for the sake of being pixel games.

Ducktales Remastered: Loses a bit in the modern translation (the story cutscenes are just kind of annoying) and to be honest, there are plenty of platformers out there that learned all of Ducktales‘ tricks and improved upon them, which is to be expected from a game from the late 80s, isn’t it? I mean, yeah it’s great that this bit of gaming history got remade and all, but it’s like everybody acting excited that Nintendo remade an old Zelda game in HD: I am not sure why I am supposed to care that much.

Babel Rising: hee hee squish all the peoples squish them and zap them hee hee hee this is all I have ever wanted from a god game ever

I know that present nerd consensus is that the Hobbit trilogy is fundamentally flawed, but dammit I liked the first movie in the new trilogy – probably because I didn’t see it in Super More Frames Per Second Version, which everybody said was absolutely awful – and this looks to have lots of awesome stuff in it: swords, lotsa giant spiders, elves doing Peter Jackson Martial Arts, more swords, Benedict Cumberbatch doing Evil Voice, and basically everything else I want out of Tolkien movies. So I’m stoked.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

So I am starting to wind up the early stages of the 2013 RSPW Awards, and for those interested I thought I’d discuss the process, in part because I want to get it down for my own use later.

continue reading "2013 Rec.sport.pro-wrestling Awards – the preparation post"

ME: So I was watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine last night and
FLAPJACKS: Ugh who cares I wanna talk about the Batman show with no Batman.
ME: Oh, yeah, Gotham. That sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it?
FLAPJACKS: Well, I don’t see what the point is of a show about Batman with no Batman.
ME: For starters, the show is about Commissioner Gordon, not Batman.
FLAPJACKS: Look, that’s a cheat. First off, it’s not like anybody asked for a Commissioner Gordon show. Would you want a show about Alfred, too? Back when he was a British spy and secret agent and wait that actually sounds great so never mind that, but a Commissioner Gordon show is basically just Law and Order unless you put in super-villains. And if there are super-villains, then where the hell is Batman in this show?
ME: Maybe it’s no super-villains and it’s like a show where Gordon is a Good Cop and the rest of the force is corrupt because it’s Gotham City and they are the true villains.
FLAPJACKS: They already did a corrupt cop show and that was The Shield.
ME: Except that I just described the exact opposite of that show. Jim Gordon is the anti-Vic Mackey.
FLAPJACKS: EXCEPT except that thanks to the early promo material for the show we already know there are gonna be supervillains. They all but said so.
ME: They also said that Rage was gonna show up in Agents of SHIELD and that turned out to be a guy called Mike Peterson, which is like the least superheroey name ever.
FLAPJACKS: Was that official promotional buzz or was that nerds trying to guess things by randomly naming black characters from Marvel with super-strength?
ME: I personally cannot tell the difference any more.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway. Look, part of the thing about Batman that people like is that his villains are obsessed with him. Let’s assume that some supervillains are going to show up in this Jim Gordon show, because seriously, why would they not put supervillains in the TV show set in Batman’s city? Isn’t there already a cop show without supervillains on the air?
ME: Well, there’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine –
FLAPJACKS: Sitcom, doesn’t count.
ME: Maybe Rookie Blue?
FLAPJACKS: That’s a coming-of-age show that happens to be about cops.
ME: Almost Human?
FLAPJACKS: Robots are basically supervillains anyway.
ME: Blue Bloods?
FLAPJACKS: That’s more of a family drama than a cop show although you do have to admire Tom Selleck’s moustache, which is very Jim Gordonish.
ME: NCIS?
FLAPJACKS: No.
ME: NCIS: Los Angeles?
FLAPJACKS: That’s the one. See? We’re covered. We have a cop show without supervillains already! We don’t need another one!
ME: I bow to your inescapable logic.

Mom is one of the less-talked-about new shows premiering this season – it certainly doesn’t have the hype of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D or Almost Human, nor the star power of The Crazy Ones (Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar), nor the sheer wackadoo craziness of Sleepy Hollow (a show where Ichabod Crane survives for 200 years while buried in salt because it has become his supernatural duty to destroy the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and also what is with all the Starbucks everywhere?). No, Mom has a perfectly respectable cast – Anna Faris, Alison Janney, Nate Corrdry, French Stewart – but not a jaw-droppingly stellar one unless, like me, you are an Alison Janney fan forever because of The West Wing. It’s a very grounded sort of family sitcom, so it is hardly wackadoo. And of all the CBS sitcoms airing this year it arguably has the least hype. (We Are Men is getting way more press for reasons I do not exactly understand.)

However, Mom is, I would suggest, the most important show debuting this fall, for one reason: like 2 Broke Girls before it, it represents a sitcom’s attempt to talk about class. Specifically, lower class. Anna Faris’ Christy lives with her two kids in a small one-level bungalow where the living room and kitchen are one room (and not a terribly big room either) and there are three bedrooms (or possibly two bedrooms and a den that has been converted) and a bathroom and that’s it. For TV purposes it’s about as small as a multi-cam set can be. Christy also drives a shit car that’s at least fifteen years old, wears Wal-Mart level mass-produced clothes (as do her kids) and has a unglamourous, manageable hairstyle. She refuses to leave work when she is having a total breakdown because she can’t afford to miss hours. She loses her shit when she takes a day off work to see her kid’s talent show and it’s the wrong day. And of course her useless ex owes her back child support like whoa, because of course he does. Christy is poor, and not glamorous fantasy-hobo poor or resourceful hipster-making-like-Aladdin poor either. She is just “this is shitty” poor, and this is a rare thing to see on TV. And that’s important. Poor characters on TV are guest stars, either played for laughs on sitcoms or murder victims on procedurals. They’re not protagonists.

The problem is that we’ve seen this before, namely with 2 Broke Girls. I have no doubt that Chuck Lorre actually really wants to make class-conscious sitcoms: he got his start on Roseanne, after all. Looking at his body of work, Mike and Molly is definitely lower-class in its aims, and this is the guy whose first major show was Grace Under Fire and that was hardly a rich people show. Plus if you read all those long-ass title cards at the end of all of his shows, it’s clear that he’s something of a socialist (or at least seethingly anti-corporate in outlook). But Lorre also wants to make a popular sitcom, and popular sitcoms have hacky jokes in them, and Mom is no exception: the initial conversation between Christy and her mother is hack writing of the worst variety (it’s really, really bad!) and only Anna Faris and Alison Janney’s respective acting skill elevate it to something tolerable. And Lorre has a track record of shows that go for easy jokes. When you consider his two biggest hits, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, “subtle character study” is not what comes to mind. Maybe Lorre isn’t as big an offender in his shows as 2 Broke Girls – great premise, rock-solid cast, and writing that turned into a never-ending mountain of cheap, shitty ethnic jokes by the second episode – but he’s not far off.

Basically, the question with Mom is if we get the Lorre who was one of the key voices on Roseanne during the show’s prime, or the Lorre who indulges in juvenile sex jokes on Two and a Half Men and endless fat jokes on Mike and Molly. This could go either way. I’m hoping for the home run, because Mom has potential to be the next Roseanne and it’s a show that I think western culture desperately needs at this point. But I am skeptical, and I think not unfairly.