She Forgot "Tired"

Way late now, but nonetheless worth a post. Meg H. of Meg H. — The Blog! fame and her little friend, whose name is also Meg, came for a visit to the Indy a few weeks back, and though the office was finishing up the behemoth Best Of issue and therefore beaten-down as all get-out, I did what I could to give them a tour. In all honesty, I failed as a guide. I was pretty frazzled myself and was running all over the place more than usual. However, as a thank-you note-plus-homework assignment, Big Meg had Little Meg write up her own newspaper describing what she learned in the tour. I finally brought it home and scanned it. It's really only viewable in full-size form and it's entirely worth the effort it will take to click this hyperlink. For those that need further incentive, here's a selection.

Pay special attention to the part I highlighted. For what it's worth, she nailed it — both in her description of me and of the office itself.

Fun Teenager Ketchup Party

Stole it from Meg H., who stole it from Bri. It really did sound like fun:

Rules:

1. You guys tell me what kind of music you want.

2. In a few days, I'll post one mp3 for each of you.

You can't request music by band name or genre. You have to describe, in terms of color, mood, texture, taste, or any other creative way you can think of, what you're looking for in a song, and I'll do the best I can with what I have. Yes, that means that I may end up posting a song that you wouldn't normally listen to. That's part of the fun.

I can't use more than one song by any given band. The point of this meme is to give you a taste of new stuff, not to pirate whole CDs. If you like what you hear, you'll still need to buy it yourself. If two of you come up with identical descriptions, I have to find two bands that both fit, or use one song for both of you.

I can't make the song permanently available. Unless the song in question is already available on the band's website (in which case, I'll provide a link to their site instead of posting an mp3), I'll be taking the songs down in a few days, or posting them on a temporary host so that they'll expire after a few days.

And be forewarned: I tend to have fairly odd taste in music. Make of that what you will.

Of Myths and Monsters

Meg Horexjhxi — Meg! — wrote me with a reminder of a new bit that will be of interest to Nintendo die-hards like her and me.

You probably already heard this, given your capacity for arcane information, but Pit from Kid Icarus is going to appear as a playable character in the next version of Super Smash Bros. It's called "Brawl."

I realized when she wrote that this news is also of interest to Back of the Cereal Box readers, for
I think many don't understand the origins of this blog's address and my AIM screenname. You see, "Kid Icarus" is a wonderful side-scrolling game Metroid-esque I played when I was wee. And played. And played again. In fact, I can still hear the tinny, early 8-bit theme song in my head. It stars a winged little guy with a bow and arrow. His name is Pit and he is on a never-ending mission to defeat Medusa and rescue the fair goddess Palutena. (Much later in life, I found out that this name was a Japanese corruption of “Parentha,” which is one of the names of Athena. Go figure.) Anyway, the game combined my love of video games with Greek mythology, as Pit had to fight characters like Cerebus and such. A good, long-standing childhood memory.

Now Pit is being updated for the next entry in the “Smash Bros.” franchise, “Smash Bros. Brawl.” The game pits old and new Nintendo mascots against each other in hand-to-hand combat, for no real reason other than to make a fun game. And seeing Pit re-imagined for a high power system makes me happy.

Here's Pit as I remember him from my childhood:

And here he is, computer generated and looking much more like the hero of Greek legend he was supposed to be. That is, of course, Greek mythology by way of anime.

Small victories. You take what you can get. I honestly can wait to wail upon the likes of Mario, Pikachu and Princess Zelda with arrows of pointy justice.