OK-
so I sold my old DW kit to Carl. Man, I had some good times with that kit- but Carl was ready for his first and after the birth of Gianna, I decided to let it go, and he bought it. I had a little regret knowing that there was no longer a 'loud noisemaking device' located in my spare room. And it kinda started to hurt a little. Inside. Where you keep the feelings. So after thinking about other kits for a while and constantly throwing out other options, I was about done for good. What did I have to have a kit for? I wasn't currently with a camp, and most of the stuff I wrote lately was with Richard & Carl, and since Carl took off for the Slabs, it just hasn't come to mind. But Richard mentioned them the other day, and how we had nothing to jam with now. It started to hit home. Especially after Joey & I had a few beers Wednesday and were actually calling other friends with drumsets to see if we could come over & jam. Well fuck that. Who does that? If I need to play that bad I 'll just go down to Guitar Center and piss them off for a half hour or so. No need to disrupt the homes of my friends. So what happened? What's the point of all this? OK- I broke down.
A friend and co-worker called me up and asked me for an opinion on some drums he saw on Tulsa's Craigslist. It was a small kit, mostly just shells but came with a few Zildjian Amir cymbals. At the price of 195$, I told him it looked like a good deal, and he went for it. But, having brought up that fateful page on my computer, I returned to find it still open- beckoning me-please! Read us! All of our posts regarding drum kits- you must read us all! And that's exactly what I did- leading me to a pretty good find and my newest acquisition.
It's a 1972 Ludwig maple kit, with orange stain over the maple--it's fucking gorgeous! It was listed at 400$, but the seller & I were able to reach another settlement. Now they are in my living room, I haven't even set them up yet- but they need to be broken in. All that is left to do is do some pawn shop trolling and find a few shitty practice cymbals and get my chops back up a bit. And for some reason, I cant find my extra snare stand and throne- who ran off with those?? Well, until next time- know that I'll be back practicing up....and bringing the beat back in the house! It'll be a piece of piss. The groove returns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was a dark and stormy night. In fact, it really was- it rained for like 13 hours straight. Which is about how long Commander MacAdoonu, ColecovisionVonFlankSteak & I played Faxanadu for the NES- with side-splitting roars of laughter. It's a good one, boy!
Y'see, this game is about the Hero, this guy that shows up years after this countryside or kingdom or some shit has been taken over by this Dwarf asteroid (or funky ball of tits) from outer space. As far as we could tell, the whole object of the game is to quickly usher all of the enemies to the restroom. You see, the only source of food in this kingdom is a "Ye Olde Burger Street", which is at least 60% responsible for everyone's intestinal distress, and teamed with what we will refer to as 'well defecation', everything's a real mess. Now it's up to the Hero to get those little fellas to the restroom quick, because all of them are experiencing painful, burning, emergency diarrhea, also known as Skeletor. Let's have a look!
First, you start running into these guys. 
They don't seem to have to go as bad as others, but still need a helping hand. Heh! Get it?
After destroying them (or helping them to the bathroom) you talk to the king, who has had a Conrad-amount of Kaopectate. He tells you about "the Dwarves that were stricken with emergency diarrhea as soon as they ate the double cheese and drank from the wells, so they turned 'em off." Your job is to go turn the wells back on (which kinda seems like it would cause problems again) and cleanse the kingdom of cholera.
Moving along the road, you start to see some of these guys.
It seems apparent at first glance that these guys need to get to the port-o-let quick. A few coaxing thumps with the Deluge'll get 'em where they need to be- and equip them with the Scott tissue.
Later, you see these little guys.
Aww, look at em. They dont have to go to the bathroom at all! They just want a 3-year-old male to molest. Honest! They have the public masturbator trench coats too!
Give em a deluge or two, it calms down their masturbatory needs.
So, after you get into the game a little bit, you start to have this feeling of accomplishment from helping these creatures out. They really appreciate it, and you find this out and the end of the game. But one thing that happens a lot that really sucks- you need a key to open every bathroom. And whats worse? Even after you have opened the same bathroom 4 times, you STILL NEED A FUCKING BATHROOM KEY TO GET IN!!!! It fuckin' sucks! I mean, you're out here in a evil countryside filled with shit, and you keep locking yourself out of the bathroom!!!! So you will need to stock up on plenty of these. 
Once you have enough keys to open all of the bathrooms, it's up to YOU to get all the incontinent monsters into the toilet. And as the levels progress, they are more and more in need of going to the bathroom.
Have a look at this guy.
He has to go so bad that he runs full speed at you until you direct him to the bathroom. He also places his hands over his ass in an obvious display of necessity.
And this guy?
He has to go so baaaaad! So bad in fact, he kicks his legs around like a propeller so fast that he lifts off of the ground about 20 feet above your head. You gotta calm him down, and you guessed it, deluge.
Here was one of my favorite enemies.
You can actually see the need for relief on his face. Boy! Does he ever have diarrhea! And that isnt all- he guards stuff you really need like the Holy Milk of Magnesia 
and the magic bismuth. 
These come in handy, so you have to deal with him. Use the thunder! That's the way!
While you're stompin around, one thing you really want to find is the ointment. That's right, I said it- the OINT-MENNNT! 
Ointment is very popular, even amidst people of our own time, as you can see scrawled on a bathroom wall here:
You really really need it. You gotta apply it in your treehouse fort with your underwear for it to work though. Let's move on.
So after helping the kingdom take a shit for 4 hours, you will see these dudes: 
Yep! Sperm! And guess where they come from? That's right! The rapist! 
These guys don't really have any respect for the needs of the inhabitants of the diarrhea kingdom. They just rape the shit out of helpless dwarves and create piles of sperm balls until the sperm guy comes out on the next screen. If you ask me, he's just a mild distraction from the game's major plot.
Hit him with your deluge, and he will stop raping.
Later, you have to help this little guy to the can. 
Just look at that sense of urgency on his face! Dang!
So to sum it all up, you basically keep doing that over and over for a long time until you run into this guy, who has to go so bad that he just tries to eat you.. 
See how bad he has to shit?? It's incredible!!
And after you've got him off to the watercloset, the king is all, "It will take time, but the Dwarves and Elves will eventually grow up and stop shitting in each other's water supply, and boy, you're a restless guy!"
So, in the end, everyone is all thankful and stuff and you've gone through a lot of toilet paper. All in all I think it's real fun. Now get out there and fix those damn wells!
So, I promised I was done buying machines for a while.
But that doesn't mean I cant trade.... so I guess I will- because it seems like I oughta. Boy, this shitty economy really helps when people can't get the same giant pricetag on coin-op anymore...and it's now a collector's market. The thing is, my goal is to collect the 'classics'. Classics defined by games like Donkey Kong, Joust, Karate Champ, Galaga, etc. So I'm seriously considering trading my Neo-Geo (mentioned below) for a Defender and (what was once) a Joust, because of my love for the classics- I just don't care enough about 90's-esque machines anymore. So I'm cleaning more up and bringing them in:
...at the end of the day they will be a welcome addition to the High Voltage gameroom. Also this month: Rapid Fire (pinball) and Track & Field....from BrickTop. We're slowly moving in the right direction...if I could only get this damn Terminator II machine out of my way! I'm hoping to have the gameroom close to finished, or at least mostly done before March , 2010. (though there will always be crap in the garage). 
Til next time, go to your local liquor store and grab a six-pack of Kingfisher. If they don't carry it, demand that they do.
Tuesday January 19th, 2010
I did end up trading the Neo Geo for the Defender, and it's really fun. There are a few bad ribbon cables on the PCB but we were able to rig it up temporarily until replacements can be ordered. The cabinet is in good shape for a machine that is 30 years old- and the inside was very clean, tidy & shiny. The Joust will be a project for this summer.
AVGN's NES collection!
Well, James Rolfe of Cinemassacre.com, The 'Angry Video Game Nerd', has updated his site with this new video showcasing some of his NES collection, as well as a thank you to the fans. It's a pretty good video, I enjoyed it, and now we will leave it here for you to see it.
New machines coming in for fall...
Picked up a few cabs recently, working on getting some of them finished.
Right now to finish I've got Time Soldiers, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Pole Position, Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters, Tron, and a multigame cocktail.
Pole Position is being converted to a compact flash multi-driver game, with 25 racing games on it, everything from Pole Position to Outrun. The multigame cocktail table will have the hyperspin setup that was in NARC. The others just need to be resto'd and brought in. And here comes fall.
You will inevitably waste some time reading this, but in the long run (to the bathroom,) you will save some time by NOT attempting to play this God-forsaken
Sorry to remind you of delicious breakfast items, as I have just done so for myself. Here's the deal: This game, (like most Contra games,) kicks major ASS! Especially if you play it in the 2-player simultaneous mode. BUT, ... If you manage to beat the game on the easy difficulty setting (which you most likely would do by standing in this spot on level 3 and taping the fire button down until you fill up to the limit of 29 lives,) you will only get a shitty, scolding screen full of text that tells you (in so many words) "challange a REAL difficulty setting, pussy!"
So let me just save you a few hours of your time by telling you that when you FINALLY beat it on "NORMAL" difficulty setting, you will be rewarded with a screen full of text that says (in so many words) "Challange a REAL difficulty setting, cunt face!"
I am an individual who, within the last couple of weeks, chose to defeat the original Contra for arcade, without getting "game over." This is not easy, at all. In fact, it took me an hour or two of practice before I made this dream a reality. ... Yes, ladies, I'm available.
So, one might think (naively) that someone in my position, might be in the ballpark of being qualified to be considered as a possible contender for the trophy of "Person who has beaten Contra 3: the Alien Wars on the "normal" difficulty, using save-states on his modified X-Box."
So, what is the reward for said wastage of one's time!????? EH??? Eh???????
Well, ... it's a screen that says the same fucking thing!!: "Challange a harder difficulty level, you fucking pussy!"
... Okay, seriously. Konami WAS a good company at the time. I mean, Castlevania 4 kicked freaking ass and junk! It wasn't gut-numbingly difficult, nor was it ball-tinglingly easy. It was just right. In fact, I remember playing that part that has the chandelier while it was raining outside, and being creeped out by the creeking noises that occured when I was 14.
So, why did Contra 3 have to be fucking ridiculously difficult if you played it on any setting other than "easy?"
Maybe that's a question that can only be answered by the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson, or that writer guy that James Earl Jones played, ... or Joe Jackson, who seemed to know a lot about "steppin' out" and "looking sharp."
... The moral of the story is: Just play Contra 3 on the "easy" difficulty setting, and commit to the idea that you are never going to see the legitimate ending, unless it's on youtube. Trust me. Trust Justin. If I can't do it, he can't. Or can he??
