Monthly Archives: May 2010

life of pike, rambles, random

Top Three Things I Am Addicted To At The Moment

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1. STRING CHEESE

The other day I bought a 12-pack of string cheese, my reasoning being that it would give me a couple weeks’ worth of snacks. Yeah, three days later I’m down to… one, I think? This isn’t counting the string cheese I buy with my lunch every day at work.

I don’t know, they’re just so stringable and munchable and have I mentioned that I love mozzarella? Mozzarella and provolone are my two cheese loves. (Oh wait, did I forget Colby Jack? Let’s throw that in there too.)

2. ALTOIDS

I dunno, I just go through about five of them a day. (Mints, not entire tins. Yeah, I’m not quite that addicted.) As an aside, does anyone else remember when these were The Big Cool Thing in middle school? Or was that just my school being weird?

There are apparently fruit-flavored Altoids, also, which makes me wonder if their slogan is “Curiously Fruity”. Mostly because I crack up just thinking about it.

3.)

P-P-P-POKER FACE

So I was late to the Lady Gaga party but fortunately this has been remedied. Now, a little thing about me: I tend to binge when it comes to music. I’m not one of those “Load up the whole playlist and hit shuffle” people… rather, I get into something (or, frequently, rediscover something) and listen to it until most peoples’ ears would bleed. A couple weeks ago it was U2… lately it’s Poker Face on repeat. Oh, and Sonic the Hedgehog fans: This cannot be unheard.

This completely pointless blog post has been brought to you by Clockwork Hare Inc.!

classic video game monday, video games

Classic Video Game Monday: The Lion King

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A few people have left comments here regarding this game so it’s got me thinking about it. This, folks, was the first SNES game I ever played.

And this game was GOOD. I mean, I dunno, maybe I’m just being nostalgic. And there was nothing particularly super-groundbreaking about it. But it was a solid platformer and every level had a sort of different twist to it.

There was a lot of memorization involved and a lot of trial and error. For the second level, you had to growl at monkeys in a particular order in order to beat it.

…and this was just a warmup for the ninth level, a labyrinthine series of caves that you could get lost in forever if you didn’t know where you were going.

Despite the many comments on YouTube crying about how hard the game was, however, it was never too hard for me a kid. I mean sure, there were levels I spent a lot of time on. But back then, (before I was spoiled by modern games which seem to put more emphasis on getting things right the first time), that’s just how games worked. Plus, it really wasn’t that hard. Not only did I memorize the cave level pretty quickly, but I also memorized all the little sideroutes where bonuses and secrets were hiding.

This game had tons of replay value and I don’t even know why, because once you nailed the game, every playthrough thereafter was essentially the same. I think it’s because once you figured it all out, you could beat the entire thing, bonus levels and all, in under a half hour, and it gave a smug sense of self-satisfaction to be able to do so. Sort of like how I would later go on to do repeat things like beating the 150cc Special Cup in Mario Kart 64 or redo-ing half of the Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time or wandering around the map looking for stray clans in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance… just to unwind. These things were challenging but always do-able and they worked as little pick-me-ups because it meant you had mastered some skill, and The Lion King was no exception.

I’m not sure how well this game would hold up these days for someone who hasn’t played it before. But I guarantee that most of us who played this game back in the day have nothing but fond memories of it.