NERDCULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKEMONS OF THE WEEK! FEB. 2-8/13!

POKEMONS OF THE WEEK! FEB. 2-8/13!

TENTACOOL & TENTACRUEL!

This week we're looking at the tentacles with the tenta-most, #72 Tentacool & #73 Tentacruel!We're gonna be looking at the designs of the first generation Pokemonsters and maybe talk a little bit about Episode 19 of the anime, simply title Tentacool & Tentacruel!

LAST WEEK'S POKEMONS OF THE WEEK: CROBAT & SWOOBAT!

WORD OF THE DAY! 2/2/13.

intestinal fortitude [in-tes-tuh-nuhl-fawr-tih-tewd]
noun
1. Courage; resoluteness; endurance; guts!

EX. Speaking of intestinal fortitude, "D-d-do you have it? Ooh! D-d-do you have it? GUTS!"

NICKELODEON GUTS 1992 THEME

I've talked about the Legend of the Hidden Temple, a Nickelodeon game show that challenged the intelligence, reflexes, agility, courage, and team work of kids from 1993-1995, leaving a deep impression in the collective childhoods of Gen Y. Today, we're talking about a similar program that ran from 1992-1996 and spawned quite a few memories-- especially, the theme (link above) and the Aggrocrag.

Now, while Legends of the Hidden Temple was probably the better show, all around between the historical theme, clever set, and awesome hosts, Guts had something special too; Guts challenged kids with intestinal fortitude to compete in an athletic battle of foam and broken dreams. In each episode, three children or teenagers (represented in Blue, Red, or Purple) competed in four variant contests that borrowed and combined elements from soccer, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc. These four types of contests of skill were categorized as Aerial, Field, Track, and Pool events. the final event is a race up the Aggrocrag, a mountain of crystalline madness that only the mightiest warriors will defeat without accidentally violating one of the seven or so possible violations (ex. running across another contestants path).

The winner got to take home a piece of the Aggrocrag! Woo!

Another fun note, was that there was a variant called Globat Guts where teens representing various nations competed for a multicultural Olympicized variant of the usual program: interestingly enough, the top three teams were 1. United Kingdom, 2. Mexico, and 3. United States. But, also interesting, was that every nation represented several times winded up with a total of 12 medals and the "other country category" also had 12. I guess it shows that lots of kids have guts. D-d-do you have it?

GAME GRUMPS VS. GUTS PART 1/4

90's!!!

WORD OF THE DAY! 2/1/13.

enchiridion [en-kahy-rid-ee-yun]
noun
1. A handbook or manual.

EX. If you're a fan of Adventue Time, you know that the Enchiridion is an important artifact in the Land of Ooo that are hero, Finn, became the entrusted owner and defender of in one of the first episodes of the series. PREVIEW

The book appeared to be a magical and ancient text with lots of useful advice and lessons for a young hero to learn (Ex. Like "Chapter 5: How to Kiss a Princess"). Not to reveal or SPOIL too much, because the show's recent season took us on a dark journey to discover many of the secrets and past tragedies that led to the post-apocalyptic fantasy Land of Ooo's situation-- yes, in case you were unaware, this setting is post-apocalyptic. In fact, there is mention of their being "Mushroom Wars" which, almost certainly, refer to an all out nuclear war that, much like the premise of the classic animated film, Ralph Bakshi's brilliant WIZARDS (you can watch the whole thing by starting with Part 1/8 linked to the left of this parentheses).

Also, on that note, there are a lot of things in common between these two worlds. Wizards inspired many a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting where modern technology is impressive magic to fantasy races (think how impressive a film camera or tank would be to Bilbo Baggins?). But anywho, if there is anything to be talked about here in this sloppy rant, besides how you should watch Wizards, is that a post-apocalyptic world is great for Dungeons and Dragons (which Adventure Time is very much inspired by and inspires).

In fact, as D & D is a game where they recommend borrowing story elements and world elements, Adventure Time is a pretty interesting place to borrow ideas for a fantasy setting. Heck, the first adventure I ran in my Korbo the Barbarian campaign borrowed hijinks from the Legend of Zelda, Korgoth the Barbarian (duh), Heavy Metal, and, of course, the Enchiridion episode of Adventure Time since the first adventure included a magical book, a keymaster and a minotaur. Stay tuned for future rants about stuff and, perhaps, more adventures of Korbo.

Basically, this was mind dump to get my wheels rolling for some future content. Sorry if it can be that way sometimes, but I do this for entertainment-- yours and mine.

WORD OF THE DAY! 1/31/13.

necromancy [nek-roh-man-see]
noun
1. A method of divination, in other words fortune-telling, through the use of communication with the dead, ghosts, etc.
2. Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, etc.
3. Magic used to resurrect and manipulate the dead, death, and things related to death.

EX. What's cooler than a necromancer? A necromouser!

BONUS VIDEO!

WTF WED! LIGHTSABER FIGHTSABER + EGORAPTOR SCREAMS MEME!

WTF WEDNESDAY PRESENTS

LIGHTSABER FIGHTSABER!

This video has been on the backburner for a while because um, I dunno, stuff and things, but this has certainly earned enough of my WTF and chuckles to get attention. First up, is a video of OneyNG (of Hellbenders & lots of other animated madness) and Egoraptor (of Metal Gear Awesome & Game Grumps fame) duel of fate-ing it out for your amusement with lightsabers.

EGORAPTOR SCREAMS FOR 1 HOUR!

And now kiddies, prepare to Experience Bij with an hour of Arin Hanson AKA Egoraptor screaming for an hour straight. This is a simple challenge on par with the Afro Circus challenge; you simply watch the video and see how long you can endure it. You can't do anything else unless you do it with a friend. In which case, you can giggle and crack up as you lose your mind. To increase the difficulty and become a real warrior, simply play multiple windows of the video at the same time and/or wear headphones.

WORD OF THE DAY! 1/30/13.

breeding [bree-ding]
noun

1. The producing of offspring.

2. The improvement or development of breeds of livestock, as by selective mating and hybridization.

3. Horticulture. The production of new forms by selection, crossing, and hybridizing.

4. Training; nurture.

5. The result of upbringing or training as shown in behavior and manners; manners, especially good manners.

EX. Hey, today, we're talking about some possibly missed potential in the Pokemon universe with one of the mechanics that they, more or less, swept under the rug. That mechanic is Pokemon breeding.

Everybody knew about Pokemon breeding because of the principal characters in the original anime, Brock, leaves his job as a gym leader with a dream of becoming a top notch Pokemon breeder. If you take into account that Brock was portrayed a restrained lech, perv, and, at best, ladies man with his pursuit of any attractive female character in the series, especially Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny, then his dream of spending his time on a farm and making dittos whore out to clone someone's Pokemon seems sorta creepy. In his defense, and yes I'm defending Brock, I think it reflected his paternal/maternal instinct that he had cultivated by looking after his younger siblings when his father abandoned them to be a creepy hobo. Regardless of Brock's morality, lets take a look at breeding as an in-game Pokemon mechanic.

Originally introduced in the 2nd Generation, breeding was basically a way to get lower evolutions of Pokemon that you couldn't catch in the wild,  like the awful baby Pokemon (ex. Igglybuff) and to get copies of rare Pokemon for trade. To be honest, it was sorta useless. The only breeding I ever did was to get more Evees and, because I was lazy, I bred my Evee with a Ditto. Ditto was the Pokemon that could breed with anything, because it can take any form, but lets be honest-- that's kinda creepy. In the latest games, starting with the 4th gen, they've made it so Pokemon can breed with Pokemon of similar body type. This can allow for all kinds of breeding possibilities and in the complex meta game of today's Pokemon game, breeding to make sure your Pokemon get the right move, temperment, etc. is a great addition to the strategy and work that goes into getting better Pokemon. Here is where they could take it further though:

Dragon Warrior Monsters was, as far as I know, the first Enix title I ever played and I played the crap out of it. It was a game where you capture monsters and train them. The most interesting part of the game was that you could cross-breed your strongest monsters and see what they created. You didn't just get a monster you already had, most of the time, and you could wind up with some super rare cool monster that borrowed the best of its parents attributes. This was risky because when you breed the monsters, you lose them, so this actually added some interesting risk and reward to the mechanic.Now, imagine the possibilities if you could do this in the Pokemon games:

POKEMON FUSION

Above, is a link to a website that allows you to mix Pokemon, fusing them together, to get some terrible or awesome amalgam. This is where the Jigglycruel at the top of the page comes from using the site. Imagine how neat it would be to be able to crossbreed Pokemon-- think of the possibilities! It could be-

NEVER MIND. *Goes to scrub eyeballs*

WEEKLY ROUND-UP! 1/21-1/27/13.

WEEKLY ROUND-UP PRESENTS

"DEAL WITH IT!" WEEK!

7. WORD OF THE DAY! 1/22/13. The Great Chain of Being.

"Human beings in a mob/ What's a mob to a king? What's a king to a God?/ What's a God to a non-believer who don't believe in anything?/ Will he make it out alive? Alright, alright, no church in the wild."

6. NERD CULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKEMONS OF THE WEEK #2 Politoed & Slowking

I somehow forgot to do a Pokemon of the Week article in the weekend before last so I made sure catch up. I like writing the articles, even if they're sorta shallow.

5. MUSICAL MON! SUPER MARIO RPG PLAYING GAME GRUMP ANDROIDS!

The trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 was the highlight of last week's Musical Monday--check it out.

4. WTF WED! UNAIRED EPISODE: DEXTER'S RUDE REMOVAL!

This was a kick in the jaw of the face of the body of our nostalgic childhood. I watched it about three times last week and still have trouble believing it existed.

3. NERD CULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKEMONS OF THE WEEK #3 Crobat & Swoobat

Instead of using the random generator, my friend Zach chose Swoobat and I went from there.

2. WORD OF THE DAY! 1/26/13. Rubble.

I wrote this article before the big pre-release as a way to get excited about the event, my choice of Gruul, and to share some of my MTG passion with you guys. My advice to anybody out there wondering if they should try Magic is to go to do a little research and go to a pre-release event.

1. MIXED BAG. SHADOW COMPLEX REVIEW!

Anybody out there got another opinion about the slightly generic but fun Shadow Complex?

TABLETOP TALES: GATECRASH PRE-RELEASE!

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

MY GATECRASH PRE-RELEASE!

To check out my other decks, hit the link below:

ALL OF MY MTG ARTICLES!

This article serves two purposes: To share the nerd entertainment around with anyone who might find it interesting and, in this case, to share my experiences with my fourth pre-release.

You can find Magic Cards in super stores (Ex. Walmart, Target) but the best place you can buy your cards, meet other players, and play in events is at your local comic book store or hobby shop. I buy most of my cards at The Comic Cellar. Here is a link to its Google Maps location at 3620 Austin Peay Highway #2 Memphis, TN 38128.

And here is a link to Comic Cellar's Website

I took part in the Gatecrash pre-release on January 27th, 2013, at The Comic Cellar. It cost me $30 ($25 if I had signed up earlier) to sign up and, for that fee, each player recieved 6 boosters packs, including a special booster pack for a chosen guild-- including Orzhov (White-Black), Dimir (Black-Blue), Gruul(Green-Red), Boros (Red-White), and Simic (Green-Blue) (symbols pictured above)-- a promo card for your guild (which you could use in the event) and with the materials each player was expected to build, with all the lands they needed, a no less than 40 card deck.  They were 5 one-on-one matches, each a best of three rounds, and a ranking (the top 16 get increasingly more packs until you get to 1st place which gets a whole box of packs). Each player also received a "pity" pack at the end of the day. All together, the event was well worth the admission fee, and a blast that began at 10 AM and went late into the afternoon.

We also got a life dice unique to our guild, a sticker of our guild symbol, a letter from our guild leader, and an achievement card.

Gatecrash is the second part of the Return to Ravnica set, continuing a trilogy of set releases to end with the spring release, Dragon's Maze. This expansion set pushes the plots developing in the massive city plane of Ravnica forward with evidence of the Guild Compact breaking down as all the guilds seem to be conspiring with rumors of Niv Mizzet, head of the Izzet Guild, up to something big involving some sort of maze. The first card set that took place in Ravnica was introduced in 2005 and was a very popular setting. Ravnica has several minor themes, from the artistic and flavor themes of cities and technology, to a mechanic for each of the guilds.

Some of the cool mechanics and themes to look forward to with Gatecrash include special lands (gates and shocklands), land enchantments, multi-color spells, and new mechanic for each guild:

Extort (Orzhov, Black-White) - Found on creatures and enchantments. (Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay . If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain that much life.)

Cipher (Dimir, Blue-Black) - Found on sorceries and instants. (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)

Bloodrush (Gruul, Red-Green) - Found on creatures with X being a variable cost, Y/Z variable bonus to power/toughness, and Q being a possible added effect. (X, Discard this creature: Target attacking creature gets +Y/+Z and Q until end of turn.)

Battalion (Boros, White-Red) - Found on creatures with X being a variable effect like creature getting a power/toughness and ability bonuses until end of turn & other effects. (Whenever this creature and at least two other creatures attack, X.)

Evolve (Simic, Blue-Green) - Found on creatures. (Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power or toughness than this creature, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

My ending record, unfortunately, has taken a dip; with two wins and three losses. I'm not sure if it was bad luck, the fact that I lost a night of sleep, or my pool of cards. I didn't place near the top, but I still had a great time. If there is anything I could have done better it would be have about four more creatures since, on reflection, I didn't have enough frequent creature drops. I definitely rocked and rolled as I said I would in the article I wrote before the event (check it out here) and to discuss that let's look at my...

MY GATECRASH PRE-RELEASE DECK:

RED-GREEN-BLUE EVASIVE AGGRO!

I think I was inspired by the fact that I was torn between going with Gruul or Simic with which guild to rock in the Gatcrash pre-release or the fact that I had some pretty sweet blue spells that would help me evade blockers and hit my opponents full force with my big stompers. Its funny that I mostly played two-colors in the last pre-release, with some three-color exploration of bant, but in this pre-release I really pushed it thanks to having a pretty decent mana base (two guildates and two keyrunes) that allowed me to play what I wanted to play and, while I had some trouble with it, I loved playing RUG Aggro!

The only question I have now is... what the heck am I gonna play in Dragon's Maze? In that set, every guild is an available option with an interesting twist-- secret guild alliances so that I'm thinking you wind up playing three colors. Now, I gotta wonder, do I choose Selesnya or Gruul?

Anywho, I don't have much to say, but I'm glad to have played what I played and wouldn't have changed much (but perhaps my pool of cards). Keep reading and check out what spin I had to spin to play this three color deck..

WORD OF THE DAY! 1/29/13.

whittle [wit-uhl]
verb
1. To cut, trim, or shave (as wood) with a knife.
2. To form by whittling.
3. To cut off (a bit).
4. To reduce something, bit by bit.

EX. Yeah, one of the trickier elements of Pokemon strategy is figuring out how capture Pokemon especially rare, singular, or even super rare shiny Pokemon rather than knock them out. This seems to get harder the more powerful your Pokemon becomes, but here are a few tips.

1. Train up Pokemon that paralyze and put foes to sleep before they can explode, attack back, flee, etc. This will also multiply your chances of netting a Pokemon with your Pokeball.

2. Use a tough Pokemon that can withstand the Pokemon's moves. A good trick is to use neutral or resistant Pokemon to match up against them and use moves that are not very effective or neutral to whittle them down. There is even a move that does damage without knocking a Pokemon out like "False Swipe."

3. This is the obvious part that is easy to forget: buy lots of ultra balls, timer balls, fast balls, etc. and make sure you have items to help catch Pokemon and keep your team alive (hyper potions, full restores, revives, etc.).

And that's all the best advice I have for capturing Pokemon.

MUSICAL MON! FERRETS PETTING BRONIES!

MUSICAL MONDAY PRESENTS

FERRETS!

First up this week, we got a classic video from the maniac musician and mutilat-- I mean animator, secretagentbob/film cow of Charlie the Unicorn fame/infamy. Humor is, first and foremost, the art of the unexpected and uncomfortable. This is the reason why physical humor (tripping) works, the reason that after thousands of years people still chuckle at potty humor (farting), and this is the reason that every punchline in the history of comedy works (timing). Its all about setting up expectations in your audience and then surprising them in some way-- it helps that this jaunty tune sounds like it could be a real song on a kid's show or film or in the early 20th century or in American Psycho.

 

PET ME HORSE!

Next up, we got a videogamedunkey affair with his hit single and perhaps deep analysis/criticism of modernity with the addictively duncetastic PET ME HORSE! Personally, it reminds me of the little internal rhythm we all develop from playing a video game or that it is about touchscreen gaming's gameplay coming down to petting the screen or its just a very silly video from a very silly person with a good sense of humor. Shrug. It's stuff like this that makes me have to decide whether stuff belongs in WTF WEDs or Musical Mons.

LET'S GO MEET THE BRONIES!

Last but not least, I bet you would've found it hard to imagine John Delancie (of Star Trek fame as the super being Q) would be involved with a documentary on the biggest and most proposterous nerd/internet subculture in years, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's brony community. Even more so, this video is delightful and I think most people, unless they just hate bronies, might find it entertaining and perhaps a little educational about this slightly awkward (but enjoyable) subculture (that I am a part of). If you like it and want to know more, this video is just a portion of a full-length documentary hosted and narrated by John Delancie who became interested in the show after playing a villain in the second season only to discover that he had a whole new community of fans.