On Hiatus

Sorry for no Halloween Story this year. I will re-visit this website, Writings on Subjects, sooner or later....

Back to the basics. Back to the fundamentals.

-D (WoS).

Bubba...........

The Iron Sheik passed away today at 81... which to even imagine he lived to 81 is amazing considering the litany of health problems and the out-of-control party lifestyle this man lived.

He's another guy if I search old articles on this blog his name comes up often. I was a big fan of the Iron Sheik since I was a little kid watching wrestling.

He's always in those "Twitter Awards" Olympic medal awarding ones I used to write a lot.

It says on his twitter, that Sheikie, joined twitter in 2009 and posted 32.5 thousand tweets from 2009 to 2023. Wow... that's quite a few .... I will say he is probably the most prolific and beloved twitter persona of all time. I will miss him forever.

Today, in the vein of those Twitter Awards articles I used to do a lot... I would like to give the Iron Sheik the all-time most-greatest in-memoriam Gold Medal for Twitter which will remain his forever. No one will ever be better at tweeting than this man was.

Tweeting wasn't even what he was known for though. He was the most-hated heel in Wrestling for a good decade or more. He was a reviled Sheik from the Araby out to destroy the apple pie loving America people... hack patooie!

Now... All Rise for the singing of the Soviet National Anthem!

Russia NUMBER ONE!

Iran NUMBER ONE!

USA? Hack! PATAW!

He's up there now with the Classy Ayatollah the Freddie Blassie and the Nikolai. He's survived by his family and by Sgt. Slaughter.

In the words he coined in the twitter-verse whenever a celebrity he liked passed away... I would like to say...


Goodbye Iron Sheik... I will miss you and love you forever...

......Bubba.

Livin' This Life... ALIVE!

I think it was the venerable Beatle, Paul McCartney, who at the Super Bowl once said...

"When you were young and your heart was an open book... you used to say live and let live (y'know ya did, y'know ya did, y'know ya did.....)

But...

In this ever changin' world in which we live in makes you give in and cry.... ya say live and let DIE!"

-McCartney, P. (Beatle), James Bond: Live and Let Die (1973, run time 121 mins.)

This is very very true but I recently replayed a video game I liked ... the re-released amped-up version of a cool old video game that challenges this time's old axiom.

Yes we must Live n' Let Die... but while we are living it ... We gotta LIVE A LIVE!

This game rules! Searching my blog... I've mentioned this game twice before it says even as far back as 2011.

Back then it was considered a "Lost Treasure" that never got an American release. Times have changed... as 28 years later... they gave this great game an American release. Wow.

That should give the Mother 3 fans hope, I think. People have been petitioning to get an official Mother 3 release to American audiences for decades now. If Live A Live can get one 28 years after it was made... then anything's possible!

Anyways, if you've read this blog over the years... you probably know I'm a huge Square head. I really marked-out to the Golden Era of Squaresoft as a 12 year old kid. Did I ever. Their games were so different than what anyone else was making. They had full orchestras, well-written stories and characters, cool moves... these games...they were in a league of their own for a while.

I consider the "Golden Age" of Squaresoft to be when they made... Final Fantasy IV (2 in USA), Live A Live, Final Fantasy VI (3 in USA), Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VII (7 in USA).

That era would be about from 1991 to 1997. For a good seven years... this company could do NO WRONG. It had the gilded touch! Everything Squaresoft touched turned to solid gold!

I remember being confused a bit in this era when Final Fantasy VII (7) came out... because we only had three up to that point released in the West. We had one on original Nintendo which wasn't even that great... we had "2" which was actually "4" the one with Cecil and Kain and Rosa and everyone... then "3" to the West was actually "6" the one with Terra and everyone.... and then in 1997 the seventh installment was called "7"... so we went from 3 to 7, basically.

I'm sitting there going... where's the other three games? The internet explained that two on the original Nintendo (NES) were not brought here and also the fifth game on SNES was not released here either. We didn't get them because they were deemed not interesting enough for the USA market that preferred action games and side-scrollin' violent stuff. To be fair, I get it, that these games are for a more docile and literate crowd and maybe the fan-base just wasn't there in America back then.

I'm so happy we got friggin' Chrono Trigger though, man. That game, in that era it was released, was pure GREATNESS. The greatest game, guys. Wow.

So Live A Live came out in 1994... and we didn't get it. Which is a shame in retrospect. To be honest... I can see why they skipped on an American release for this... MESS of a game. I say that in a positive way when I describe this game as a mess. It is an eclectic mish-mash of silliness and coolness all smashed together in this unhinged package and then thrown onto a chess board.

Oh and it's an emotional roller coaster too! This is another reason I think video games don't get an American release is if the story content is deemed to touch on sensitive issues... which to me is ridiculous.

America has no problem releasing the most insane violence simulators to its young crop of fragile minds but if a story touches on something deemed difficult for a kid to see... forget it.

Then again it might've not been America censoring these games but Nintendo. Nintendo wanted its global reputation to be built on family friendly fun.... it probably nixed a lot of its games on its own from getting an American release.

It's funny now, people are watching the 1993 Super Mario Bros. (run time: 105 mins.) movie after seeing the new Mario movie that's out and just collectively being weirded out about how strange it actually is. The 1993 Mario Bros. movie is not what you expect it to be. America has different sensibilities, I guess. In the mind of America the 1993 Mario film became a dystopian punk-rock struggle as Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha Mathis, and Mojo Nixon... stand up to the evil Dennis Hopper... who is trying to use a gun that can de-evolve people into primitive versions of their species!

Okay.......

I guess in the end... We Are ALL DEVO!!

I think it was more of not understanding what America wanted that kept these games from coming out... and I really think Japanese video game companies... especially post-Mario (1993) film... were so confused at America and what the nation actually believed in and stuff. Eventually Squaresoft even built a base in Hawaii and hired Americans to make a RPG aimed at American audiences... and the result was Secret of Evermore in 1996. It is a decent game. Secret of Evermore was a pretty good game.

What a strange time, honestly. So many great video games came out at that time. Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan) which is set in a make-believe version of 1990s America... is probably the greatest video game ever made still to this day. It's so fun and good.

Reading some of my old video games articles...I've said some not-so-positive things about Square... or now it's called Square Enix... after they merged with the Dragon Quest people. I remember writing a long article many years ago about how much I disliked Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy VIII (8).

I really think there was a schism in the company in 1997... you saw it blossom in Final Fantasy VIII where the stories were not as well-written and the characters were not as likeable as previous Square games. Back then I thought they were just going for a different audience... like maybe some executive came in and told them that they are trying to get a more wealthier demographic to play these games and you have to change them.

Who knows...

I read an article once, a while ago, that said the Japanese government was so upset that young people spent so much time playing video games... that they sent out some sort of a decree that video game companies had to make their games worse... on purpose. Less addictive than worse, really. I read that Final Fantasy VIII was Squaresoft's version, possibly, of trying to make a game so bad that kids put the controller down and went outside. I believe it... I think I do... Final Fantasy VIII is a truly bad game. It really is.

If you play Final Fantasy VIII (8) with the angle on it that it was made as a parody to make fun of its own audience... it actually IS a good game. This mopey jabroni running around doing pointless nonsense and constantly feeling sorry for himself... and day dreaming and getting his junctioned magic all out of place from being an absent-minded turd-wad... that's how teenagers who played video games in 1999 were! If Squaresoft was trying to make their audience look in the mirror and learn something about themselves... then I actually have to amend my opinion of the game and change it from D- to D+.

As for looking in the mirror and learning something about our own selves ... Live A Live... wow... it still hits home with that. I really think this game is a masterpiece and highly suggest people play the new re-master of Live A Live. I played it on Steam the other week or so and really have to give the new Live A Live...

...11/10.

This is really how I remember Squaresoft games being as a kid playing them in the 90s. It was the Golden Age of the JRPG genre. They were so unique and different than anything else out there.

Oh and let me tell you about this HD-2D thing they got going. That is a thing of beauty. It's old school but it's new school! It looks like the stuff we played in 1993 but all souped-up! It's a thing of beauty is what it is!

Live A Live isn't the first who got this engine... Octopath Traveler got this engine first, I think. That game is basically a very Live A Live style game but minus the insane mind-bending nonsense that makes Live A Live so unique.

Eiyuden Chronicles: One Hundred Heroes is said to be in this slick new HD-2D engine too which is making me mark out before I've even played it yet, even.

I don't think video games need to have super realistic graphics... in fact... it makes them less fun in some ways. Do we expect our cartoons to be super realistic and we have to want to confuse them with reality or do we prefer cartoons to be artistic art with their own unique fun styles? The latter most definitely.

I think the HD-2D engine gives them room to focus more on story and characters then to always be worried about if some hamburger looks real or some chair looks real. Live A Live is a damned rock opera! It doesn't care if some fish-shaped pastry looks like how a fish-shaped pastry would look exactly like it would in real-actual life! Live A Live is too busy rocking my socks off to care about something as completely dumb as real life!

I was reading an interview with Takashi Tokita where he says he wants to make a sequel now... Live A Live 2: Livin' More Aliver! If I was Square Enix... I would give this man the green light to go! The green light to rock and roll!

It's time to make a bunch of HD-2D Rock Operas! Oh Yeah!

Yeah!

Ice Storm and Northern Exposure X: X Posure

My region was hit by an ice storm again recently. I didn't have power for like almost five days and it sucked but since it was in April and not in the dead of winter like the '98 Ice Storm... it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

This article I wrote a few years ago has many memories about the 1998 one:
(https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2019/11/skeletor-radio-and-ice-storm.html)

I think that article was good. It had like a two-theme-thing to it which makes the month's article fill up faster.

I was like...fifteen, I guess in the '98 one... and some of the lines are funny to me....

"At that point, if you don't have to go to school, but cannot play ten hours of straight video games... then what is the point of not going to school, you know?" -Me (2019)

This line is very Beavis and Buttheadian, I find. Honestly, it would not surprise me if Beavis and Butthead had a conversation very similar to this on an episode. They probably lost their TV and decided to attend school that day. This line is more Buttheadian not so much Beavisian.

The weird thing about this recent 2023 Ice Storm on the island and surrounding region of Montreal was that it lasted like 5 hours. That was it. Everything froze like Hell had literally froze over... as the old saying goes... as the photo I took here shows.

Check this out, I'm gonna write a Haiku for this photo I took check this out...

Endless Ice is Here
All Eyes Can See all Around

are the Broken Trees

A Haiku: By D

That's pretty good. That's sort of Matsuo Basho kind of style, I'd say. Sounds good.

If you didn't go out in the early morning of April 5th... you would not have seen this. It was warm and all of this melted by the afternoon ... and what was left was endless broken trees. The ice only weighed them down for like a few hours but still long enough to basically prune every tree on the island of Montreal.

Nature is wild, guys. Sometimes we think mere humans have really controlled our environment and our the Masters of The Universe like He-Man or She-Ra... but no... Nature can destroy us whenever it wants to and for no reason.

I still have my Skeletor radio and was listening to it again during the four or five nights I had no power. Let's do another Haiku while I'm in the mood. Let's write one about this cool Skeletor Radio...

Cold and Lonely Nights
Nary a Sound nor a Sight
Only Skeletor

A Haiku: By D

Alright, I think that's enough of Ice Storm and Skeletor Radio Haikus for one sitting let's move on to the next topic in this two-topic piece.


Northern Exposure X: X Posure

All this talk about ice, cold, and lonely nights has got me thinking about the hit 1990 television show Northern Exposure.

I hope you liked the first part of my article because this next one is very odd and silly. I chunk out dumb ideas on Twitter sometimes for future articles or just to launch some nonsense around into the void of the endless internet. I don't have many follower or anything but it's just fun to know you can launch nonsense into the stratosphere of the internet for someone/everyone to read whenever you want.

I remember thinking that Northern Exposure should get a reboot but in a totally ridiculous way... and lest we not forget... that many episodes of this show were freaking whacky, to begin with, looking back to it. I was like a pre-teen when this show aired and it was genuinely strange at times. I remember one where there were two Fleischmans... he had a cool alter-ego or something.... and one with tube-men or something. That show was always odd. They had a bubble-boy too.

Another show that sort of weirded me out as a kid and that was Picket Fences (1992)... that show was weird to a kid sometimes. The characters were genuinely strange. It was less fun than Northern Exposure though.

Anyways, since I saw it as a kid who didn't even really understand it... Northern Exposure (as well as Picket Fences) are sort of fun yet odd memories for me.

I was thinking a year or so ago... they should bring back Northern Exposure but make it more silly and weird... even make it a cartoon or a Tokusatsu style show.

First of all... Dr. Fleischman should have a mechanized bionic suit. He has designed a cool mech suit to deal with the cold and bears and stuff. It would be a cool-cool robot suit.

Ed would now be the Shaman of the town after many years of intense training and he can summon eidolons. They are Eagle, Falcon, Bear, and Coyote eidolons who guide him, can talk to him ... and are sagely and smart. His hair has gotten longer and cooler.

Maggie has laser guns now. Pew. Pew-pew.

The other characters are all there doing their things but I haven't fleshed-out their X-Concept designs yet. Anthony Edwards can come back as Bubble-boy Man Guy... but I heard he doesn't act anymore for a long time because in real life he's super rich because his mom invented "White Out" or something... or no... nevermind... I think that was one of The Monkees, maybe.

Yeah, Anthony Edwards can be Bubble Man again in Northern Exposure X: X Posure... if he wants. He was a different Bubble Man though... he didn't really live in a Bubble like Travolta, or the Seinfeld one did... he lived in a Bubble Mansion and studied plant life... or something. He was with Maggie a lot.

I don't think I remember this show well enough to commit to this pitch. I only actually remember like six episodes in detail and even then those details are scattered. I'd have to watch this show again... and there's 110 episodes it says... I don't think I can handle that episode load just to write a thousand word bizarre piece of bad fan-fiction with abominable snowmen, evil ice spirits, and robots.

I like the Ed character in this Northern Exposure X: X Posure idea the best so far. He was seen as dopey and kind of out-of-it on the old show... but in my reboot Ed will be the spiritual leader of the town after completing his shaman training with the elders. He can communicate with the spirits of Alaska and summon great and powerful spirit animals to guide himself and the town.

At the end of Season One, I'd end the pen-ultimate (second to last) episode on a cliffhanger where Ed and Dr. Fleischman have a falling out over how they should defeat the Season One end boss.... who would be an evil Ice Spirit who can make avalanches and take the form of a gigantic bird.

Fleischman says only the power of science can defeat the evil ice spirit that is bombarding the town of Cicely with bad avalanches... and he'd get Maurice and some others together to build a big tank that shoots fire... but Ed... would tell him he knows the nature of the evil of the spirit and can coax it into becoming a tame and helpful spirit once again... but he just needs time.

Fleischman tells Ed... that THERE IS NO TIME!

Maggie gets sick of their arguing ... tells them that they can longer count on her to operate the flame cannon of the tank... and goes to stay at Bubble Man's house.

Maurice and the others end up agreeing with Dr. Fleischman that the fire-cannon tank is their best option.

Ed is disappointed and leaves....

Meanwhile at Bubble Man's bubble mansion... Maggie is feeling regretful of her actions. The whole town is fighting but her... and Bubble Man. She comes to her senses and tells Bubble Man she's leaving to go back and operate the fire-cannon of the tank.

Bubble Man is a pacifist and refuses to join her and stays in his bubble mansion.

Whilst... back in the main A-plot... Fleischman and the rest of the townsfolk are battling the Evil Bird Spirit with the cool tank... they have it on-the-ropes... but simply can't finish it.

Oh no.

The episode ends...

To Be Continued....



Just kidding... I doubt I will continue this with any effort so let's just end it now.

In the season finale of Northern Exposure X: X Posure:

Ed is in a wooded-area sitting all by lonesome next to a roaring fire... he focuses his inner-mind and summons ALL the eidolons. The Eagle, the Falcon, The Bear, and the Coyote. They tell Ed that the evil bird spirit is also an Eagle... the Eagle remains silent for but-just a moment... and then tells Ed the shocking truth... that the evil spirit is his brother who has lost his way.

Ed asks the Eagle if he'll lend him his strength and asks the Eagle if he'll pacify his brother and let him rejoin the land of the spirits... the Eagle is wary... but agrees.

Ed and the Eagle soar as one to the battle ground!

Meanwhile... Maggie returns to the battle ground and hugs Fleischman. He asks her about Bubble Man (but he calls him the diminutive "Bubble Boy") ... and Maggie tells him to forget that guy. He's a big wuss and she hates him.

Maggie takes over for Maurice in the cannon tank chamber (the part that shoots the fire at the Eagle Ice Spirit). Maurice is tired and thanks Maggie for relieving him of his cannon duties.

They are about to regroup and re-commence their counter-attack on the Evil Spirit... when they are hit by another of its bad avalanches! This is not good, people. This is NOT good. They are scattered and their troops stop manning the ramparts!

The Evil Ice Spirit commences its main powerful avalanche attack! It's over for Cicely, Alaska! Oh no!

But...WAIT. A new hero emerges as a gigantic Bubble Shield envelopes the entire town...

....It's Bubble Man! He's come to join the fight after all! His powerful Bubble Shield deflects the entire avalanche! Wow!

Maggie asks Bubble Man why he decided to come fight and he says a touching monologue that I'm gonna think up right now...

"Maggie... I can live my entire life in my Bubble Fort safely coddled away from germs and danger... but... if you weren't in this town anymore... what would be the point of being alive? There comes a time in every Bubble Man's life... when he must leave his Bubble Fort and protect the town and people he loves..."

Maggie is touched by Bubble Man's words and embraces him deeply as Fleischman rolls his eyes. He's annoyed not so much that Maggie seems to like Bubble Man again... but he's more annoyed that Bubble Man keeps calling his Bubble Mansion a fort.

But Lo! The Evil Spirit is charging up ANOTHER ice-related super move! Oh no! Is this the end for our heroes!?

No... a big Aurora Borealis of multi-colored lights drifts in slowly on the horizon! An Eagle gently soars in the sky against the beautiful northern lights that light up the night!

It's Ed!

Ed and the Eagle are now One. The Good Eagle propels Ed into the Evil Eagle and Ed kicks it in the face! BAM!

The townsfolk roar like a lion!

Fleischman knowingly nods at Ed... to symbolize his regained trust in him. He throws Maggie a helmet and they jump into the Fire Tank. Fleischman pilots it while Maggie mans the cannon.

Ed instructs Fleischman and Maggie to fire a flaming cannon round right at him and the Eagle spirit that surrounds his body. They look at Ed and he looks cool. The Eagle and the Northern Lights look cool around Ed. Everything looks so cool.

"Trust Me..."

Ed tells him to trust him... and Fleischman and Maggie fire a flaming array of fire at Ed and the Eagle spirit. Ed, the Eagle, and the beautiful lights of the Aurora Borealis... are LIT A FLAME! The night's sky lights up in an extraordinary blinding fiery light!

Yeaaaaaaah!

Flaming Eagle KICK!

BAM!




The End

It's Almost 4000.... Also Titled: "A Look Back."

Previous entries in the "It's Almost..." series:

First one (circa 2018): https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2018/10/it-almost-2000_98.html

Second one: (circa 2021): https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2021/05/its-almost-3000-also-titled-pandemic-in.html




My goodness, friends. My goodness does time fly. Oh goodness, does it ever. It's Almost 4000!? Wow.

If you didn't know, I switched to Count Von Count counting on Twitter Standard Time in 2018... which was...

....FIVE YEARS AGO!?

Man, that pandemic really wonked-up the understanding of the passage of time for yours truly, friends, it truly did. Oh, it truly did.

I'm going to re-read my "Almost 2000..." and "Almost 3000..." articles now as a sort-of personal time-capsuled refresher course on my life.

I remember feeling "Old" in 2018... like my body was not able to do the same physical labor and physical exercise to the same level it used to be able to. This series, is of course, basically on the subject of "Time" and my opinions of it that I hope others can relate to. It would have been boring and too formulaic to simply call this series something like "Time: What I think about it"... the Count Von Count part gives it a fun angle that I like... Time, is of course, a very sad topic in many ways as we all know it is a limited resource for us all. Plus, and more importantly, the Count's count feels like an Event to me now. When the Count hits another millennium on Twitter... to see it switch from 999 to 1,000 or 1,999 to 2,000... brings this fresh feeling for me. It's like the start of a New Era! It's very exciting for me, honestly.

Re-reading these "Time" themed articles is like a time-caspsule for me. I remember how I felt when I wrote these.

I saw on Twitter, The Residents, wished the late Hardy Fox a happy birthday, wherever his spirit is, the other day or so...

...that brings back memories of the 2018 article for me.

In 2018 around that time... I was physically tired... I was tired from digging this hole... because we had tree roots going into our pipes... and we had to dig this huge trench in my front yard to get to the pipe that was full of tree roots. I was so tired from digging... then I went inside and read that Hardy Fox "died"... it was so strange though... like he sort of announced his own death. His website put up an epitaph and released his life story auto-biography called "This" on it. I remember reading this story he wrote, that day, called "The  Stone" in my bed while my body was so utterly sore. I was lying motionless from pain and reading this strange story he wrote... feeling a unique feeling... and because of how odd his "death" was... no news sites or anything were confirming it... and then you realize... this guy was not "famous"... that's why there was no confirmation... it's like no one knew who he was... unless you were a big Residents fan.

To read The  Stone, whilst I was immobilized by physical pain and the natural course of human aging... and wondering if this guy who wrote it even truly was even actually dead... was so odd. Hardy Fox was truly a unique guy.

Part of me thinks he "died" publicly...like his public persona (or lack thereof) a few weeks before he really did die... just to see what people said about him.

The 2018 "It's Almost..." ends on a 'Trumpet of Hope' sort of ending to the first article in this series that I wrote... which if you read the next article I explain what is meant by that sort of an ending.

The second article, in 2021, was in the heart of the pandemic... and I don't know how your region dealt with it but major cities in Canada were on hard lock downs. At 8pm you could not be outside your home without a valid reason... and it went on a long time. When I wrote the 2021 one... it was a time of deep mental boredom and of fear for the future.

The 'Trumpet of Hope' ending is a term coined from "Rest Aria" by the Residents where the song ends on this hopeful but soft trumpet that sort of rises out of the cacophony of bings, doots, and dissonance... which is what I hoped emerging from the pandemic would eventually feel like.

The article then goes on to talk about the Geddython's Geddy Tweet's righteous march to 2112 and some other stuff.

Speaking of The Count n' Muppets and the Geddython... coming up on April 16th, 2023... is the One Hundred Muppet Challenge: Phil Braun vs. Nick Lutsko... it's an event of quite significant magnitude on the world stage. Two men... one hundred Muppets must be named...only one can win. A battle of wits for the ages.

Speaking of events of significant magnitude on a global scale... did you guys watch that World Baseball Classic? Man, I love that WBC, I really do. It's so interesting.

I wrote about it a long time ago once,

(This one: https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2017/03/world-baseball-classic_6.html)

The 2023 World Baseball Classic was AMAZING. It boiled down to Society's two most interesting and cool nations in the world today, The USA and Japan, battling it out for Baseball glory. It ended with Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout... everyone in the Baseball World was on the edge of their seats. It was a great moment in history. Not only in the history of Baseball but the History of the World itself. It was awesome and it was so cool.

I think baseball journalist, statistician, and avid Twitter user Sarah Langs sums it up with the statement...

"Baseball is the Best!" - Langs, S.

Baseball really is the best. I miss those ol' Montreal Expos still, friends. I really do. I still miss that beautiful baseball team. It's spring now and that's usually when you'd start hearing about spring training and baseball season getting under way... you know... feeling the spring in your glands and everything. The vast snow of the winter is gradually melting away... Baseball and Spring are still quite paired together in the wistfulness of my human memories, friends, they are. The sounds of bats hitting balls, the smells of hot dogs and of fresh grass, the numbers in the boxscores... what a great game. What a terrific and great game!

I'll tell you something... that Shohei Ohtani is a SUPER STAR. He's a global phenomenon! He's a dynamic dynamo! He's a bigger Shohei than even Shohei Baba was... and Shohei Baba was close to seven feet tall! Ohtani is a legit baseball super star like the world has never seen! It's a great time to be alive!

It is a great time to be alive! What does the future hold for us in the fantastic Baseball World? Surely good things! Most assuredly good tidings and things! Oh yes!

Friends...

The Baseball world has a full and bright future ahead of itself. The Muppet world too. I'm not sure who will win the One Hundred Muppet Challenge and will not offer any prognostications on the event.

Part of me thinks Phil Braun is out of his league against a wise Muppet knowledge power-house like Nick Lutsko... he's in deep n' way over-his-head... it's almost in a Golf terminology sense... to explain it... it's like a guy who hits from the amateur white tees is going against a true Pro who hits, or rather names Muppets not hits, from the blue tees.

....but then another part of me second-guesses that assessment of their Muppet Naming talent/skills. These guys are from the Southern United States, right? They've got different tactics and stratagems in that part of the continent. What if this guy's just playin' possum? What if Phil Braun is some sort of Muppet connoisseur and is just pretending in public life to know very little about the Muppets in order to catch Nick Lutsko on the bad foot goin' into the One Hundred Muppet Challenge?

Nick Lutsko might be so confident, like an agile hare... rushing around pretending he's our society's leading Muppet-naming expert...

Yet...

...who's to say a wise old tortoise won't just show up to The Hundred Muppet Challenge and calmly start listing off tens, dozens, many, if not hundreds of Muppets?

Only time will tell... Only time will tell....


What else? You guys playing with that ChatGPT or that Dall-E? Man, I remember when graphing calculators came out, friends. All the kids at school were going nuts for an over-sized pocket calculator that could draw algebra graphs on it. Me? I didn't even want one. I wanted to draw pictures of X-squared on graph paper... on my own... with my own two human hands that my parents gave me when I was born onto this world!

Same goes for auto-writers and auto-drawers. Baby, I don't want 'em and I don't need 'em! I don't need a darned robot to type for me. I love the sound these keys make as I punch up these words! I still smell the typewriter ink that these noises have married to them in my wistful human memories. The keyboard is a beautiful machine! It's a beautiful machine! I don't need some gimmick computer to punch these keys for me! Because, baby...I can do it on my own.

You can emulate the brain of a humor writer... but... you can never emulate their soul!

And in the words of Mojo Nixon...

"...You can Never Kill the Spirit of Rock and ROLL" -Nixon, M.


Oh yes, my friends...

You can make a computer try to pretend its a humorous writer... you can... but in one million years you could never make a computer that can replicate a humorous writer's soul... and let me say it again, friends... you CAN NEVER KILL THE SPIRIT OF ROCK AND ROLL!

I bet 4000 Count Von Count units from today, in the moment called 8000.... when were are Over 8000 in our world... people will be wondering in that weird futuristic landscape what it was like for humans to type words on computers. Keyboards will no longer exist by then... kids'll be asking their grandads and grandmams what typing words on a keyboard was like... and they won't remember. They won't remember what is was like to type out the word... R, E, M, E, M, B, E, R... they simply won't...

...and that'll be a sad day in our history, gang! Oh will it ever be! The march of mankind, as Jean Shepherd would call it, the ever-on-going march of humanity and humanhood kind... that day will be marked as a sad day, friends... when no one will remember what it felt like to type words on a keyboard.

If you're reading this many many many moments from today let me tell you what writing on a keyboard felt like...

...I felt really really good!

Jeopardy!

 I love Jeopardy!

Dang, I haven't written in this in a while... I forget how to write essays. Let's think of three parts to this article.

Part 2) Cool memories of Jeopardy! from related media (ie not the TV show itself).
Part 3) At first, I wasn't sure Ken Jennings could fill Alex's grand shoes... but... now, I think he can.

But first, Part 1:


Alex Trebek... You were The Greatest.

When Merv Griffin first made that Jeopardy! and got Art Fleming to host it back in 1964... I bet ol' Merv probably thought it'd last a couple of seasons... but now 59 years later... it's still on and everyone still loves it so much.

But it wasn't Merv Griffin, or Art Fleming, or even Don Pardo who made that show the juggernaut of trusted evening after-dinner TV that an entire society grew to love... it was another man...

... Alex Trebek.

No one could have foretold that this young man from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada would become one of TV's most beloved personas.

The fast-talking jack-of-all-trades broadcaster could tape myriads of Jeopardy!'s in the span of one day... reading answers by the millions! The producers adored his professional work-ethic, attention-to-detail, and his unique on-screen charisma.

This man was literally the GREATEST game show host in History by a large margin. No one even comes close to Alex.

There's some mid-tier guys like your assorted Sajaks, Barkers, Wooleries, and Carrutherses. Oh and Regis... Regis was good too... but there's only ONE Alex. He was simply the greatest at it, bar none... and forever. No one will ever be better than him at hosting game shows... not even in a million years!

Alex Trebek... you were the Greatest.



Cool Memories of Jeopardy! from Related Media

Jeopardy! is so well-known and part of the fabric of TV that it seems to exist in every Universe of TV that has ever been created. Whether its the world of Sitcoms, Cartoons, Sci-Fi, Drama, or what-have-you... Jeopardy! exists in that Universe... with very little if any exceptions. It's that much a part of the culture of our society where it is almost unheard of in any fictional universe for it not to exist.

I'm sure someone/somewhere has documented every mention of Jeopardy! in other media forms... and I'd estimate that list to be insanely long.

A site called Gameshows Fandom seems to have a decent write-up of many occurrences of Jeopardy! existing in fiction and popular culture...

(See: https://gameshows.fandom.com/wiki/Jeopardy!/J!_In_Popular_Culture)

I will use this section to tell you my favorites... and I'll try to narrow it down to three.

My first, which is very short, is from Beavis and Butthead where they are briefly watching Jeopardy! and Alex corrects the contestant who answered "What is Mongolia"... with "I'm sorry, but, the correct response is... what is OUTER Mongolia..."

...to which Beavis and Butthead chastise the mistaken contestant by calling them a "dumbass"...

It's so silly but I love this line. They are such crappy guys... Yeah right, like you two actually knew that. Come on, guys, you can barely read and count let alone know the nuances between Asian regions and where the difference lies between Inner and Outer Mongolia.

Give me a break Beavis and Butthead! You bungholes.

Another personal Jeopardy! memory of mine derives from the NES game where I guess the memory of the game cartridge could handle only so many questions/answers because there was only like a few Final Jeopardy answers... and as a kid... I knew one of the them was Boris Pasternak from playing it a few times.

I had no idea who he was but could type that name as a 7-year old playing Jeopardy! on NES from seeing it appear on the screen a few times and knew I had like a 25% chance of getting Final Jeopardy if I wrote Boris Pasternak... and to this day... if I don't know the FJ (Final Jeopady) while watching...I'll just wing it and say Boris Pasternak.

One time on the real actual show... the FJ was Boris Pasternak and I looked so smart... but... I still don't actually even know who Boris Pasternak actually is.

What else? The Weird Al song, "I Lost on Jeopardy!" is a classic Weird Al song. People will tell you all the time that "Fat" or "Amish Paradise" are the greatest Weird Al songs... but give his Jeopardy! song a chance. It has a very funky rhythm and hits all the things you want in a Weird Al song.

There's some terms in this song that I haven't seen on Jeopardy! in so long. I haven't heard them say "Pot Pourri" on the show in so long. It was a category for miscellaneous questions with no theme. They actually said "Potent Potables" in a recent episode... that was a big term for Jeopardy! for so long.

Pot Pourri and Potent Potables... Yup. Great terms.

My favorite though is Clifford C. Clavin on Jeopardy! on Cheers though. That was so good... I haven't seen this since I was a kid and am remembering it the best I can but barfly know-it-all Clavin gets on Jeopardy! and is killing it getting all the answers and goes into FJ with like a 15K lead over the second place contestant... it was in the bag. Cliff Clavin had the game won.

The over-confidence of Clavin would be his downfall, however, as he bets IT ALL on Final Jeopardy and doesn't know the answer... so he says some really vague thing like..."Who are Three People who have never been in my Kitchen?"... Alex refuses to accept that vague question/answer and Clavin loses all his money and loses on Jeopardy!, baby...

...Ooooooooowoooooooo-oooooooh.

I've probably seen that episode once in my life like decades ago but remember it like it was yesterday. It's such a good episode of TV that Cheers n' Jeopardy! cross-over. It's A+ TeeVee, is what it is.

One of the all-time best Jerky Boys prank calls was the Jeopardy! one where he puts an ad in the paper for people to call in to test for Jeopardy! and then Frank Rizzo answers and tests people for the show... it's very great. I wonder if you could do Jerky Boys stuff now-a-days... I'm sure it's on the net somewhere. If you search for this be warned to the Jerky Boys laymen that there was a LOT of foul language on those Jerky Boys tapes from back in the day. A LOT of foul language.

"Are you well versed there? Are you a very smart man? EVERYONE KNOWS THERE'S MORE THAN TWO DAMN PITS IN A PEAR!!" -Rizzo, F.

I haven't even scratched the surface... I mean, everything mentions Jeopardy! at some point. It's like a weird glue that connects the fiction of our modern times all together. Dorothy the leader of the Golden Girls was on Jeopardy! in a bizarre dream episode where she loses to dopey ol' Rose.

Man, it's almost better to think of what Jeopardy! hasn't been mentioned on or parodied on instead what it has.

Norm MacDonald for most non-Norm-fans is really only remembered for portraying an impression of the co-star of Riverboat, Burt Reynolds, on Saturday Night Live's parody of Celebrity Jeopardy! You will still find people saying "Turd Ferguson" to this day. I'm pretty sure he didn't like to be only remembered for this bit but you can't deny it was remarkably popular.

Bill Murray is good in Groundhog Day... where he lives the same day in a monotonous loop. He sees the same episode of Jeopardy! hundreds of times and knows all the answers.. greatly impressing everyone. 

Anyways, let's move on now, you guys...


At first, I wasn't sure Ken Jennings could fill Alex's grand shoes...

Succeeding Alex Trebek is a big deal and no one can fill his shoes. He was literally the greatest game show host in Society's Entire History... it simply can't be done.

When the young up-and-coming go-getter Ken Jennings first came on the scene... I thought he was a cocksure sure-of-himself punk with no respect for anything but his undying love for trivia. A young trivia anarchist out to buck conventions and destroy tradition.

I admit he was very good at Jeopardy! but he was also a snidely arrogant contestant who thought very highly of himself. Hosting Jeopardy! is a selfless endeavor that requires filming many shows in a short span... sometimes multiple episodes in one day... it requires a person of great endurance, wit, and fortitude to Host it.

Being a contestant is one thing... but hosting Jeopardy! is a horse of a different color all together.

I knew something was up with this talented trivia fellow from day one. I watched his interview on Howard Stern and I was further skeptical of him after that... for... he said he wore magic underwear under his suit in that Howard interview and after that... I didn't know if I could trust an arrogant, cocksure, trivia fanatic who seemed hell-bent on optimizing the formula of questioning the answers to questions so efficiently as to break the system... just because he could... and now on top of it all... we learned that he wears magic underwears.

The needle that broke the camel's back for me, personally, was during the final days of Alex hosting the show where they had this Team competition between old Champions... and Alex was not shown in any promos for the show but the snidely sneer of Jennings was ALL OVER the promos... I knew something was up... I knew Alex's days were numbered.

When Alex Trebek told the world he was suffering from cancer we all were in a state of shock that we could barely handle... the Nation was deeply saddened.

They had a Successor to the Jeopardy! throne arc after that... and I didn't know who to root for... but deep down... something inside of my heart changed... during the Jeopardy! Successor Arc. The scramble for the Jeopardy! throne.

The man whom I thought saw Jeopardy! as nothing but an obstacle to overcome on his bombastic hellbent fanatic trivia obsession to become the greatest Trivia man on earth... showed more respect for the show, nay the culture... nay The Nation of Jeopardy!... The glue that holds our culture together... than any man I had ever seen. I started to realize that Ken Jennings COULD host Jeopardy!

No one can fill Alex's shoes... but something I saw in Ken Jennings those fateful days of the Successor Arc... lead me to look more brightly at the future of Jeopardy! for the person I thought could never host... slowly became the Host of Jeopardy! right in front of the Nation's eyes... eyes that were tired from the pandemic and in need of good TV Shows.

One hundred years from now? Oh, there will still be Jeopardy!
Two hundred years from now? Let me tell you... there will still be Jeopardy!
Five hundred years from now? I believe inside of my heart that there will still be Jeopardy!

Jeopardy! Forever!