bobservo.com

BRING THE RUKUS

Sat, 11 May 2013 22:17:37 GMT

A little over 5 years ago, I "feuded" with a Youngstown Internet radio station because they were lame and I had nothing better to do. I wrote an article about them for a blog I did on Valley 24, and they responded in kind by creating their own blog on the same site that quickly burned out after three glorious posts full of bugfuck insanity and tortured metaphors. Some weird glitch on the site has since rendered all of this old content unreadable, but the text still exists in the source HTML, so I've decided to replicate it here for your enjoyment.

Note: I discovered a bookmark to this old stuff today while cleaning out my bookmarks folder. Again: nothing better to do.

People of Synchroni-city...

December 31, 2007

I come to you today to discuss matters that will be changing the face of the brilliantly shining city that we have slaved so hard to build to be free from oppression and control. This glorious haven that we have created will soon open its doors to us, offering refuge from the consciousness control of The Chrones. As your mayor, I want to speak with you about the Chronistic opposition that is attempting imposition on our freewill.

I certainly have no need to tell you about all of the dark purposes and practices of The Chrones, as we have all been fighting this fight together for some time. The Core, that which we all have inside of us, that propels us into exuding that very positive energy that kinetically ignites the initial propulsion to blast forth with complete disregard, is what separates us from them.

Mac E. Bobbi, my fellow Synchronicitianites, is the man that is spearheading this machete into the heart of everything you are working so hard to build. He is leading masses of Chrones through the bogs and main streams of the evil-laden Shmooze that is coursing through the veins of Chronopolis. Mac will soon arrive, speaking to you in no-truths, utilizing an utterly unexplored platform backed by a propagated agenda.

He will invade, holding hands with Whit and Hughmer (his right hand men), in a redrover-esque fury. Barraging us with tabloid newspapers and film reels from Entertainment Tonight. He will attack our institutions of art, music and press - the very fulcrum points of The Core’s positive energy; blindly do-si-doing Whit and Hughmer down the alley, head-first towards their conquest of mediocrity. But I am here to tell you to run-on, people of Synchroni-city.

In summation, my friends, we must stick together in these trying times. I, Moestradamus - your incumbent - promise to be here until the end, fighting for the celebration of your freedom. The freedom to act, feel, think, and BE what you will. Without the repercussions of a purely uneducated form of mass communication that holds no prerequisites for integrity. The exact opposite of the very piece he is bashing.

It is time. We must pool the power of our minds, and cause change. Cause… a ruKus!!

-M

P.S. In celebration of this glorious event, we will be broadcasting from the core of the city TONIGHT for the first time ever. Tune in at the turn of the new year, and celebrate with us! www.rukusradio.net

A Patchwork Orange

January 8, 2008

Please Note: This blog was written completely in Nadsat. A language that was originally created by Anthony Burgess in the novel, well... if you can't figure it out, close your browser now. And never use the Internet again.

Salutations, O my brothers of Synchroni-city!

Your humble and fearless privodevat droog, Moestradamus, is back once again to privodeet you into the nochy, where all you have to do is open an ooko to viddy the zvooks of independence and freedom! I come to govoreet to you about this real horrorshow city of ours that is oozing with positive energy from the core, with amazing music for slooshing, and art and theatre for viddying. I govoreet in a goloss that can be viddyied from the like highest of mountains and deepest of valleys, O my brothers! The raz is now for us to dress in our best drat platties, gather our britvas, nozhs and oozies, and peet some of the finest needled moloko, before ittying off into the nochy, offering our tolchocks to the rozzes, millicents, charlies, pees and ems, and P.R. Deltoids of the world.

Let me first state my appy polly loggys for the bluntness of this govoreet. But I am fed up, O my bratties, with the negative perspective on our choodessny city.

So here it lies, chelovecks and devotchkas, the slovo according to Moestradamus. The state of our bolshy and glorious city. Slooshy the slovos welly welly welly well, O my brothers!

*End the focus on the oxidization of the metal. No longer can our messels and actions linger on the end-quote of the past. This city is bolshier than what like officially ookadetted here twenty-two years ago, or some such veshch. It is raz, O my bratties, to like band with your droog Moestradamus, to create something new for this city. A new landmark to again brosay it onto the map.

*We must feed the core. You know how after a long nochy of the starry in-out-in-out, feeling all fagged and shagged, all a chelloveck desires is a bolshy breakfast of eggiweg? Maybe with a lomtick of toast and jammiwam? Exactly like that malchick, the core needs fed as horrorshow. Its bolshy energy can only continue to manufacture itself if you feed your energy into it! And, only as your best droog do I govoreet these slovos to your ookos.

*The brightly shining patchwork of comaraderie that is sloochatavvy between droogs in this city is astonishing. We are furthering rasoodocks by bringing lewdies together, O my brothers! This is a movement. From odin side of the bridge to the other. Please, join your droogs on the groundfloor of a building that will stretch to the heavens, and sit right next to the headquarters of Bog and all his glory.

*The raz is now for a resensitization of the lewdies of Synchroni-city! There are so many veshches within the shests of this bolshy and choodessny city to keep your rods, cones and drums activated and firing! The starry argument about there being no vesches to entertain, is all a lie. I have viddied it all on my oddy knocky, O my bratties! This very forum for expression and information is the bolshiest resource we have for informing ourselves of what is sloochatavvy in the heart of this city. It is quite easy to find something to keep yourself busy at nochy, or in the day. There are parks full of trails, and museums overflowing with art. Buildings billowing zvook and music, and mestoes are creating many different types of pischa for eating and peeting. Lewdies are even creating pieces for the sinny here! We are in the midst of a cultural revitalization, and we, as lewds and lewdies of this city, need to resensitize ourselves to the veshches being created here in the core. Enjoy them. Celebrate them! And spread their positive message, O my brothers!

In searching for the sum, all your humble Narrator can come up with is a plea from the guttiwuts oozing with krovvy. With the help of Bog and all his like, angels and glory, support and utilize the resources at which your rookers and digits have at their disposal. Further your rassoodocks by experiencing all of these veshches! Itty while they exist; while they are here! Before they ookadeet like the cold, slick metal, and you have nothing to do but dwell on it for the next thirty years. End it now, O my brothers! Dispell those bezoomy bratchnies that try to tear our city down! Together we can like cast a new light onto this city!

Itty now into the nochy!

-M

The State of the City

January 27, 2008

People of Synhroni-city,

It is I, your mayor and fearless leader in the war on negativity, Moestradamus. I come in peace to speak with you about some issues of great importance; issues that are weighing heavy on this glorious city of ours; issues that are endeavoring to destroy the foundation of good that is currently supporting the weight of this fair town. Thus far, without cracking.

In the more recent past, our fight has seemed easier. The army of positivity has been growing, and it has seemed as though we were getting much closer to etching a W in the scorepost. But that W has turned out to be more like 3/4 of a V. We were constantly being introduced to new names and faces on the frontlines, and it seemed as if the amount of togetherness with which we are fighting this war was strong enough to carry us through to the end. Stong enough, to lead the masses to celebrate in our magnificent Youtopia.

But we must have been blinded by the light of The Core that is shining so radiantly from the heart of this fine city. We have quickly learned that this war is far from over, but that we have the power to turn this city into one of the finest in existence. But, we are severely outnumbered by those who, for some reason, have an unhealthy desire to blast negativity from their mouths first, and then their minds (which is certainly an accurate sequential description). These are the people we are fighting. They are the ones who claim to want nothing but good for our fair city, but at the drop of a dime, pin, or fedora, are out there bashing it, and those who are trying to make it better. With the speed of a gazelle they lash out with their critically-forked tongues, yet are sloth-like in offering their hands in aide. They live and breathe stereotypical thoughts and ideals, and are shockingly swift to orally defecate them as fact. Their personal and monetary presence is absent from the heart of our righteous city, yet they will quickly tell you how unsafe it is because of our per-capita crime rate, and figures that they read, hear on the news or from a friend. They then hold these generalizations dear to their hearts, spin them like a top, and regurgitate them to whomever happens to have their eardrums, or rods and cones, in range. It is statistical manipulation at its finest. But how would they ever truly understand without experiencing it?

So, for the Negativitarians, I've a couple suggestions that I really think you should consider:

1. Ditch the stereotypes. But in order to do this, you're going to need to quell the fear, and come experience what is happening here. It is quite safe downtown. There are always cops around. All it will take from you is a general knowledge of how to safely navigate a city. You know, use the buddy system, if possible; don't go walking down a dark, deserted road or alley; don't scream out "Hey! I'm a nervous white guy with lots of money! Come have some of it!" Things like that.

2. Lose the "nothing to do" argument.The nightlife is not the only thing happening in the city. There is so much to do, that you wouldn't be able to pull it all off in a month of weekends. You can catch some amazing pieces of theatre at many places in and around the city. There are plenty of venues at which you can hear some of the most beautiful sounds ever created. Wondrous pieces of art can be viewed all over town. Make a day of it! Sample some fine cuisine, or have a steaming cup of coffee between your choices of entertainment. Maybe sample some of the events taking place at the local university. Enjoy our planet by taking a walk in one of the most beautiful parks around, or further your mind by learning more about what surrounds our planet! And that's just a sample of everything there is to do around here. Get out and explore this town before you attack it for not having enough to keep you entertained.

3. Cause Change (kisca* causing a ruKus). The only way this city is going to get better, is by working towards change. We need to make things better. We need to give outsiders a reason to come spend time and money here. Building up downtown Synchroni-city with an onslaught of entertainment outlets would be an excellent source of economic stimulation, will create work, and therefore trickle into the outerlying areas. We can't clean up all of the areas without polishing one first. And it is going to take the efforts of as many as can be recruited. Which side do you really want to be on? No, it's not easy. It takes time, energy and commitment. But this town is worth fighting for.

4. Be Mindful. In other words, PAY ATTENTION!! Pay attention to these amazing creations of art, entertainment, and food. The other night I witnessed one of the funniest and most unique acts to come to this town in a long time. As I was doubled over in laughter, shooting Holy Moses from my nose, I happened to look around and see relatively few people even paying the most minute amount of attention! Hardly anyone was devoting even minimal brainwave activity to experiencing what was happening at that moment! I was heartbroken. Motivate. Experience the new. Be. And be mindful while doing it.

As the curtains draw, I have few thoughts left for this State of Our City address. The time is now, oh my brothers, to join us. Ditch the negativity. Help out in the fight for the positive. That is the only way things are going to get better. And we must work together if there is any hope of it happening.

Until next time,
-M

*kisca - I really just want to make you figure it out. So that is how it shall stay.

What up Livejournal.

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:22:08 GMT

Where is everyone blogging these days?

DO NOT DISASSEMBLE

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:37:31 GMT

I should probably do something with this space before LiveJournal bulldozes my archives. Where would all of my old, shameful writing live without this blog? I vow to at least update my Something Awful Article Index, if only to chart the increasing irrelevance of my comedy writing. Thank you and good day.

oh no

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 05:06:25 GMT

I let my paid LiveJournal account expire. Who cares?

leaving tomorrow

Mon, 30 May 2011 04:34:02 GMT

This song always makes me think of journeys west and new beginnings.

book it!

Tue, 17 May 2011 19:36:37 GMT

As you might know, I'm moving again; this typically involves me finding stuff to rid myself of before I am consumed by the horrors of relocating. Since books sell for jack squat on eBay, I'm offering all four of my remaining blog readers a bargain. You want any of these books? All you pay is enough for a padded envelope and Media Mail shipping. Just shoot me a memo at bobwmackey@gmail.com if you're interested, and we can set something up.

Oh, and anything not claimed by the end of Friday, May 20th will be donated to somewhere. Maybe a roaring fire.

Here they are:

Paperbacks:

Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
A Handful of Dust/Decline and Fall (COMBO BOOK) by Evelyn Waugh
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Night Shift by Stephen King
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
~~The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger~~
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
~~The End of the Affair by Graham Greene~~

Hardcover/Larger Paperbacks:

Burton on Burton by Mark Salisbury
~~I Drink for a Reason by David Cross~~
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
~~The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith~~
Eleven by Patricia Highsmith
~~Catch-22 by Joseph Heller~~
~~Some book about the War of the Worlds radio broadcast with lots of cool pictures and stuff~~

Just a note: Since I'm incredibly busy, I will send these things out at some point before I move. You may be waiting a few weeks.

Oh, and I'll be updating this as the e-mails (hopefully) start rolling in.

a history of moving, May 2010 - May 2011

Wed, 11 May 2011 02:53:56 GMT

Don't cry for me; I'm already dead.

me and the hodge

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 18:24:03 GMT

This has been sitting around in the "hey, you should probably put that on the Internet" pile for over two years--and I really can't think of a solid reason why I've procrastinated so much. Anyway, the video you will no doubt be compelled to watch is a recording of a chat I had with John Hodgman on WFMU's The Best Show around Thanksgiving of 2008. I think it's entertaining enough on its own, but additional entertainment value comes from the fact that this recording took place when I was knee deep in the trenches grad school, making sub-sub-sub minimum wage at a teaching position and generally hating myself and all those around me. Little did I know that grad school would soon release me into the wilds of year-long unemployment, where I learned how to catch, skin and eat various yard animals in order to survive.

But I'm much happier now. Enjoy!

I have no idea what my emotions are supposed to be!

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:59:45 GMT

I only have one real Christmas tradition, and that is watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 521, "Santa Claus." It's not just one of the best episodes in the series; it might be the best episode of any series (this thing will be full of unnecessary hyperbole). I originally recorded the rerun on Mother's Day weekend 1996, the last year Comedy Central ran the show. Don't ask me how I remember these details; all i know is that for the last 14 years I've faithfully watched this episode around Christmastime.

You should also watch it. Santa Claus is on DVD, Netflix Instant Watch, and here:

I think Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is the more popular of the two MST3K Christmas episodes, but that's mainly because the movie has a weird Baby Boomer cult thing going for it. But Martians is dull and plodding and grating, even if it still makes for a funny episode. (Cinematic Titanic revisited it 16 years later and improved things a little.)

Santa Claus involves the titular hero fighting the devil on Christmas Eve for the fate of children's souls, and it's mostly carried by this premise alone and its inherent creepiness. And just like in Martians, Santa Claus himself is insane and bipolar and terrible at his job. Then it gets weird. Just watch it so I have something to talk to someone about.

At Least I Got a Candy Bar

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:30:04 GMT

The Onion A.V. Club has been doing a series of fantastic articles called Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? which you should read if you were born in the past 40 years and have any interest in music. The newest entry is about the inexplicable popularity of alternarock-band-thing Live -- their name is apparently supposed to be pronounced like the verb form of the word "live" but I don't care. I'll dismiss Live publicly and live with the consequences.

Anyway, much discussion was had about their hit single "I Alone," which was a radio-friendly ditty that you could easily listen to with your mom -- provided she had some tolerance for empty angst. The video, on the other hand, revolves entirely around the unique premise of a bald, shirtless man writhing around and smooshing his face and junk while the world dies around him. Whenever I watch it I can't help but hear the sounds of Hank Hill being horrified somewhere deep within my brain: "Gah! Someone needs to tell that twig boy to put on a shirt!"

If you lived through the 90s, you probably saw this video at least 30,000 times. I know I did. But going back and watching it again some whatever years later, I can't help but be dumbstruck once again by Live's poor drummer, who, without his drums, is forced to wander through the video in a futile attempt to not look awkward. Granted, Live's frontman Ratboy Jr. sure can cause a distraction, but if you pay attention to the drummer through the whole video, you can't help but feel his plight.

Another highlight is when the second verse kicks in around at 1:22, when Shirtless McGoo realizes that his antics during the first verse will soon be seen by a worldwide audience.

But really, no analysis of the I Alone video is better than this one:

In closing: Hey, remember the 90s? *tosses jacket casually over shoulder*

Books, or Kindling?

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 03:09:11 GMT

Faster than my mom could ask, “Do you have a Kindle?” I found myself the owner of Amazon’s gimmicky device, all thanks to the power of maternal love. I should probably note that when my mom first asked me this question, in a grand display of gratitude I replied with “Don’t get me a Kindle.” I’ve never been a fan of the whole eBook phenomenon (-na?), mostly due to the inflated costs attached to downloading what amounts to glorified text files. Having served eight years in the trenches of academia, I became well-versed in the art of getting books for free -- I scammed my way through countless semesters checking out and perpetually renewing everything on my syllabi, instead of forking over hundreds of dollars that could be better spent on microbrews and life-sustaining awful pizza. And when I made the move to grad school, living a short distance from a used bookstore did a good job of spoiling me; I was once infatuated with the idea of building a semi-respectable library of books, and this business allowed me to live out my horribly impractical dream for pennies on the dollar.

In retrospect, I really should have known better. Since the summer of 2007, I’ve moved a total of five times -- soon to be six when I finally get around to hauling the rest of my garbage mounds from New Mexico to California. And in this time I have learned that books -- once a valuable part of my life devoted to earning valueless degrees -- can be the most cumbersome shit in the universe. I’ll admit that I enjoy the physical form of books; I like having a large, imposing bookcase in my home, if only to offer a monument of my personal tastes to any visitors who happen by. In fact, I tend to use someone’s bookcase as a yardstick by which to judge them. Ayn Rand? I start asking questions. Nothing but young adult fiction? No questions need to be asked. The Secret? I will request that you use your crazy brain powers to wish me away to the cornfield or something. Books allow me to be a judgmental prick, and for this I thank them. So help me god if I find a copy of Ishmael anywhere near you.

On the practical side of things, books are heavy. Books take up a lot of space. Books are not fun to carry in boxes up flights of stairs. And let’s face facts; with very few exceptions, a book that is read and put on a shelf will never be opened again. Yet another fact (you should be writing these down): books have absolutely no resale value (again, with very few exceptions). Every time I’ve moved, I’ve shaved dozens of books off my collection, mostly via donation to libraries because the majority of rational human beings realize the value of a used book is not even worth estimating. Out of all forms of media, the Internet has devalued text the most; as a writer who has lived well under the poverty line until the last few months of my life, I can verify by the emotional scars that this bleak observation is indeed true. In a world where it takes a negligible amount of effort to get anything for free, text is just there for the taking.

So while I treasure, and will soon find new ways to further pare down my single-bookcase library -- the result of years of delicate pruning and wholesale ransacking -- I see the Kindle as a way to read new books without necessarily adding a pound of weight to my total belongings; in fact, when I once again have access to my collection, I’m going to find everything I own that’s in the public domain, and eliminate it with moderate prejudice. I’ll still enjoy owning physical copies of my favorites, for psychological reasons far too boring and obvious to go into here, but I’m not going to miss buying new books and shelving their useless remains once I’m done with them. Granted, the average $9.99 price of an eBook is still way too much -- I think $4.99 would be a happy medium -- but I guess this is the price you pay for the convenience of not having to figure out the best way to dispose of a book once it’s been read. And I’m a little bummed that a good number of the books I’ve planned on reading -- especially the ones only available in expensive, hardcover editions -- aren’t yet available in Kindle form, and probably won’t ever be. The world demands digital versions of comprehensive multi-volume Orson Welles biographies!

I do find a lot of oddities when it comes to what’s missing from the Kindle marketplace. I don’t read very much of it these days, but manga seems like a perfect fit for the device -- yet all I can find on Amazon’s site seems to be nothing but the smuttiest of smut. For a brand of comics where series typically last for dozens upon dozens of volumes, I can’t think of a better method of delivery or consumption. Though my black heart was warmed when I discovered that the Kindle is completely worthless for academic work, once again signifying the irrelevance of a world I’ve since washed my hands of. Try finding the original pagination for your sources when you write your boring articles for tedious journals now, jerks! Note to Amazon: please don’t change this so I can remain justified in my bitterness, thanks.

So yes, the Kindle has won me over, despite my healthy skepticism. Now I can only pray that some new technological standard doesn’t make this new e-library as valueless as my vast coffers of Flooz.

halloween tradition

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:39:04 GMT

As part of this blog's Halloween tradition, once again I present the scariest story ever written (by me).

WARNING: The following story I have written may be too intense and shocking for younger readers.

There was a new car wash in town. A skeleton car wash. It was called “Skeleton Car Wash” because it was a car wash run completely by skeletons.

It was Saturday. I was in the car with my stepmother, and she asked me, quite bluntly, “Would you like to go to the Skeleton Car Wash?” I asked, “You mean, the one run completely by skeletons?” She nodded. The other Skeleton Car Wash was run by the Skeleton family who were not skeletons.

We pulled up to the Skeleton Car Wash, and a skeleton in coveralls walked over to the driver’s-side window. “What’ll it be, ma’am?” My stepmother asked for a normal wash; the skeleton walked over to my window, rapped on it, and stuck the ten dollar bill my stepmother had given him right in his eye socket. It popped out of his mouth and I guess it would be scarier if we hadn’t just shopped at the Skeleton Supermarket (they have a skeleton in the back that works in the deli).

My stepmother drove into the car wash, and the lights went out. It was just like a regular car wash, except you were supposed to tune your radio to a specific frequency and they would play spooky sound effects. Except I guess the skeletons weren’t paying attention because there was just a bunch of jungle sounds.

We pulled out of the Skeleton Car Wash onto the main road. We both felt empty, somehow. Suddenly, my stepmother looked at me and asked, “Wasn’t that car wash supposed to be $8.50?” At that point I realized that my stepmother was a ghost all along, and we didn’t get our change back and things were scary.

THE END?

Look at it. LOOK AT IT.

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:30:43 GMT

Pinwheel was Nickelodeon's answer to Sesame Street, though it was stolen from Canada and probably filmed in Chernobyl. Like the majority of Nickelodeon's programming in the 80s, it was imported cheaply from another country and presented to American children with far different standards for entertainment.

To be honest, I don't remember much about the show aside from the fact that it was poorly lit and every puppet seemed like it was capable of murder. Like the rest of 80s-era Nick, Pinwheel was dull, but distressingly creepy at the same time; I distinctly remember being excited to watch the network at my grandma's house (she was the first one to get cable), but always walking away from hours of programming with an odd sense of fun-sized depression.

I mean, they used to show stop motion shorts about a tepid boy hanging out with his equally-tepid grandma. And they were both British. Hundreds of cups of tea were downed, but was a single child entertained? I think not. I tried to find a clip of this on YouTube, but I'm guessing the creator dissolved the original prints in acid once he realized that he made the cartoon equivalent of carbon monoxide.

Downtime Over

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:38:27 GMT

If you're wondering why I haven't updated my personal blog in about a month -- and I know it's been digging away at your brain like a bloated deer tick -- you may be relieved to know my inaction doesn't come from laziness alone. By the way, the noise you just heard is the sighing of 12 other people comforted by the fact that I haven't abandoned this blog like all of those uppity 15 year-olds who claim that LiveJournal is "too immature." Nuts to them, I say.

Anyway, in case you haven't been paying attention to other popular Internet venues of self-worship, I've recently been snatched up by Atlus USA to work in the field of game localization. Previously, I was trying to worm my way into the world of games journalism, but I kept running into the problem of having people far more qualified than me competing for the same jobs. So, having achieved the very realistic goals I set for myself (namely, getting published on my favorite gaming website and magazine), I walked off into the sunset and headed for a new industry, nearly forgetting that I probably would have freelanced for all of eternity if I hadn't been recruited by Atlus after a year of constantly badgering them. Actually, I'm still willing to freelance, provided there's no conflict of interest involved. And I'll still comply with the unspoken freelancing rule of "you won't get paid for months upon months!" You see, any semblance of dignity disappeared from my soul long ago.

That said, I'm enjoying this new job -- after a year of practically being unemployed, then finding a good job that eventually made me work from home, it's nice to have a routine and co-workers again. And not just co-workers, but people I actually may have things in common with -- yes, it's frightening. And if you're wondering how much I appreciate an opportunity like this, know that I drove 12 hours to move to California, and drive an hour every day through sorta-L.A.'s schizophrenic highways for this job alone. And I loathe driving with every fiber of my being, even the undigested fiber currently nestled in my small intestine. I only hope that I've wedged my foot in the door of this industry securely enough that I'll be able to squeeze in my entire body one day.

So that's that. Expect me to update this thing more than necessary, since most of my freelancing has been replaced with a real job. And since I have no local friends to hangzilla with, I have nothing better to do. Especially since no one really wants to hangzilla with someone who makes up their own slang. As you can see, I'm the same old Bob, just in a place with inappropriately expensive rent.

Insert Your Favorite Tired Metal Gear Joke Headline Here

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:02:18 GMT

Thanks to the fact that I no longer make the wages of a student/teacher -- the equivalent of busking in Siberia -- I only recently got around to picking up a PlayStation 3, and have since been catching up with everything I've missed over the past four years. Now, I should probably preface this post by stating that I'm a Metal Gear fan; while I do recognize the faults of the series, I also find these games wholly unique, experimental, and, at times, mind-blowing. Metal Gear Solid 3 sort of snuck up on me (durr) back in 2004, and this strange side-story in an already strange franchise became one of my favorite games of all time. I'll even admit here that it may be the only game to get me a bit choked up by the end.

So naturally, I was looking forward to Metal Gear Solid 4, but not so much that I was willing to drop hundreds of dollars on a system that I wouldn't use for much else. So I waited, and heard about most of the game through podcasts, articles and the like. The general consensus was that, while deeply flawed, Metal Gear Solid 4 still stood as an excellent game, and a fitting ending to the franchise's 20-year legacy. After finishing the game a week-or-so ago, I have my issues with this evaluation.

While playing Metal Gear Solid 4, I couldn't help but shake the feeling that director Hideo Kojima lost most of the self-control that made Metal Gear Solid 3 so fabulous. 4 starts strong, and even though I found the battlefield scenarios a bit tiring and nonsensical (why are all the enemy soldiers freaked out after spotting Snake in particular?), the game still offered a lot of what I expect to see in a Metal Gear game -- at first. As noted in most honest criticism of the game, Metal Gear Solid 4 loses the plot after the end of act two; I really got the sense that Kojima felt that playable sequences were a necessary evil in closing the book on Metal Gear.

By the midway point of the game, I was treated to lavish, lengthy cutscenes, most of which ended with some lame pretense at giving the player something to do. The story wasn't told through the actions I performed as a player, but through the same ol' Kojima non-interactive song and dance. Someone needs to sit this man down with a pile of Valve games and show him how much a player's agency can contribute to a video game's story. Of course, I knew what to expect going into a Metal Gear game, but in this case, the cutscenes spaced Snake's so far apart in space and time that the interactive portions felt less like a cohesive world and more like mini-games interspersed between movies.

Of course, the game did have its bright moments -- I wouldn't have invested 25 hours if it didn't -- but ultimately, Metal Gear Solid 4 spends far too much time and effort trying to tie up all the loose ends on a story that, as a whole, didn't deserve so much attention. I'm hoping Konami actually lets Kojima start a new franchise, because the man obviously has a lot of ideas that would be better story not weighed down by so much 8-bit baggage.

Oh, and if you're not averse to listening to two-year-old podcasts, the excellent and dearly-missed GFW Radio did an excellent postmortem on the game back when it originally came out. It's a fantastic little discussion that makes me wish more gaming podcasts would aspire to be a little less fluffy and disposable.

Criss Cross

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 22:47:46 GMT

Criss Cross (1949) Dir. Robert Siodmak - This noir reminded me a lot of the excellent Out of the Past, except it's a bit duller. The two films share some basic ideas: doomed romances, failed attempts at rekindling, and sadistic new boyfriends; the real difference is that Criss Cross is fit to squander most of its time in a flashback that establishes the relationship between our two main characters. This type of structure isn't inherently bad, but in this case it sacrifices the promise of tension and conflict for a study of characters who aren't very interesting.

Criss Cross does pick up a bit in the third act, when the movie leaves the backstory behind and moves onto the somewhat-interesting armored car heist, which made for a uniquely creepy setpiece. The remainder of the story takes the form of full-blown noir, and is capped off with one of the darker endings I've seen in a film from this period. And while I did appreciate the change of pace and tone, it only made those first two acts seem even more tepid in comparison. I always find noir at its most disappointing when the filmmakers want to have it both ways; jamming a schlocky 40s romance into a genre that's supposed to explore the darkness of humanity always feels a little jarring.

3/5

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:40:45 GMT

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007) Dir. Hideaki Anno et al. - Despite abandoning anime years ago for less-embarrassing pastures, I still hold a nostalgia-free fondness for certain shows. And even though I'm extremely aware of its many flaws, Evangelion holds the dubious honor of being one of these titles.

I have my reasons. Most importantly, Evangelion is one of the few anime series that feels like it came from a human being, rather than a committee; and yes, the unbelievable merchandising inflicted on the show over the past 15 years does detract a little from its deeply personal nature. Still, I enjoy Eva and revisit the series every couple of years, because I genuinely appreciate its status as a labor of love wholly crafted from a sick person's brain.

That being said, I feel extremely guilty for buying Evangelion 1.0 on Blu Ray, because it's really nothing but a shallow cash-in built around the promise of a giving the original story a satisfying ending -- though that won't happen until many years from now. If you weren't aware, 1.0 is a remake (the first of four) of the 26 episode TV series; and as far as remakes go, it's incredibly shallow.

Though the entire production is prettier, brighter, and spread across a wider screen and higher resolution, the desire to stick so closely to the source material really prevents this movie from being anything but a novelty. In fact, it feels like Anno and his crew didn't even take their new format -- and budget -- into consideration when planning this first movie. A great deal of 1.0 is a shot-for-shot remake, but most of the TV series' animation direction was steered by a limited budget. In other words, you're till seeing the same TV animation shortcuts, albeit in a much more prettier format.

To be honest, I found myself missing the meticulously hand-drawn-and-painted cels of the original series; here, they're replaced with sterile copies that are technically well-drawn, but devoid of life and texture. And punch me if you must, but the methodical pace of the TV series' beginning really helped to establish the world and characters of Eva, and provided an interesting contrast to the everything-goes-to-shit speed of the latter half. Thankfully, Evangelion 2.0 -- according to those who have seen it -- takes a much more thoughtful approach to the whole remake idea, and marks the first time they've let the FLCL director do anything interesting for a long time. It's a shame this first attempt didn't amount to much more than 90 minutes of traced artwork.

2/5

Thumbing Your Nose to Spite the Face

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:05:15 GMT

A few days ago, while I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, I heard the hosts refer to director M. Night Shyamalan as "M. Night Shamalamadingdong." I shuddered a bit, mostly because this is an incredibly tired meme that dates back to the late 90s when this new director with a waaacky name took Hollywood by storm. I also shuddered because that whole "Shamalamadingdong" joke (and the variations I've heard over the years) is just a liiitle bit racist.

Now, a disclaimer. I know the folks on this podcast are not racist, and they definitely didn't intend to be racist when they slurred Shyamalan's name. I'd also like to state that I find M. Night to be a terrible director, and, from all accounts, a repulsive person. But this weird Indian slur thingie managed to really work its way under my skin. I should have known this from experience, but you definitely don't want to take arguments about race to the Internet. I did.

First, it's entirely possible that you may be asking, "Why is saying 'Shamalamadingdong' racist?" Well, you see, it's taking a person from a culture that's been Othered, and refusing to give him the dignity of even attempting to pronounce his name correctly. Instead, this expression is basically saying "Hey you, I'm not even going to attempt to utter your weird name. Instead, here's my approximation of what your goofy-ass language sounds like." It's sort of like the "ching chong" China crap, except not quite as infamous and socially unacceptable.

Despite what popular opinion may say, racism really only works one way: down. Since I'm white, you can call me every white "slur" under the sun, and you'd get as much anger out of me as you would if you did the same thing to a chicken. Racism depends entirely on a social construct backed by historical baggage, so it's literally impossible to be racist against a white person; even if you tried this, the established power structure -- in the US, anyway -- would make your efforts moot.

This is why it annoys me when I hear white people chuckle about "Shamalamadingdong." I don't care if he has millions of dollars. Try all you want to equate making fun of a white person's name with making fun of an Indian person's name -- I don't care. "But people made fun of Schwarzenegger's name would you call that racist huh huh huh!?" No. He's what the world views as a white person. He's a Republican, for Christ's sake. Racism doesn't have to be balls-to-the-wall Crash-style burning down houses and dragging people behind cars. It can sneak into what we perceive as harmless, and that's where it does the most damage.

Again, the Internet is not the best place for this. People don't like to be told that something they said -- however unintentionally so -- may be laced with racism, sexism, or any other ism. I don't blame the person, not in this case. I blame the idea. And I can tell you that if I tried any of that "Shamalamadingdong" crap on my Indian peers in grad school, I would have walked away with a broken nose.

A Bug's Life

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:12:59 GMT

A Bug's Life (1998) Dir. John Lasseter -Thanks to the recent purchase of a Blu-Ray player, I've been watching a ton of animation simply for the fact that films from the genre look absolutely stunning when spread across 1080 delicious lines of resolution. At the moment, I'm slowly revisiting Pixar's catalog, though I really didn't feel the need to write about Toy Story 1 and 2; honestly, I can't think of anything to say aside from "these films are still fantastic and hold up very well, regardless of dated technology" See? Boring.

But A Bug's Life is different -- out of all Pixar's films, it's definitely the least-remembered, despite being wildly successful during its release. Since I hadn't seen the movie in almost a decade, I was genuinely interested in knowing if Pixar's second film deserved its lukewarm rap. What I found was not an awful movie, but a strange, unfocused, and generally aimless one. Really, I'd never thought I'd enjoy a Pixar film less than Cars -- which really wasn't all that terrible.

The major issues in A Bug's Life run deep into the "what not to do in a screenplay" territory. For one, the main character isn't very appealing; Flik's outshadowed by a much more interesting cast, he barely does anything (intentionally) to move the story along, and he's supposed to garner our sympathy due to his outcast-y-ness alone (kind of like the similarly lame Remy from Ratatouille). The basic structure of the plot is just as poorly-realized, moved along by contrived coincidences and outlandish misunderstandings, to the point where it seems like no character actually needed to exert any agency to move the story to its logical conclusion. Strange, since the first Toy Story's script ran like clockwork.

The movie is in no way helped by a tedious amount of "what if bugs were kind of like people, but not really" jokes. While the Toy Story movies are rife with this sort of material, it's completely (well, mostly) in service to setting up that particular series' somewhat dark fiction. Here, it just seems like the story guys at Pixar had a bunch of insect gags that they couldn't quite wrap a movie around. And is it just me, or do all of the characters in the movie look like they fell out of some shitty Rare game from the same era?

2/5

L33T H4X0R

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:39:10 GMT

Even though I've already pimped it elsewhere, I'm also going to use this Internet space to wholeheartedly recommend that you read my new 1UP.com article about the ROM translation scene. As far as writing goes, I don't think I've ever been more personally invested in a feature. While I've never actually contributed anything to the scene, I've been a lurker since the very beginning; I distinctly remember playing Shadow's Final Fantasy V translation upon release, and freaking the hell out about what this meant for the world of Japanese-only games that teased filthy gaijin with their inaccessibility.

I'm not entirely sure if this is nostalgia talking, but I really can't think of a more exciting time for gamers than the emulator explosion of the mid-to-late 90s. Without it, I doubt we'd have much of a perspective on the history of the medium; aside from a few exceptions, anyone with a working search engine can basically play any game from the late 70s to the late 90s -- within what I consider the bounds of "acceptable" emulation. And since my high school years basically occurred during this exciting era, I essentially had limitless free time to explore a ginormous gaming landscape of undiscovered greatness. Summers would be spent getting up early, checking all the emulation news sites (including the translation ones, of course), then tinkering around most of the day with games I've never played before. Thank god for permissive parenting.

Possibly my nerdiest moment: downloading a .wav file of the then-unreleased SNES9X emulating the opening of Chrono Trigger because holy crap sound in an SNES emulator. It didn't take much to excite us back then.

Maybe I'm a little too sentimental for these days, but everything did have a distinct grassroots feel to it; the translation scene was just part of a bigger movement of fan sites -- which Nadia Oxford wrote a great article about -- most of which have since disappeared in the wake of blogs,wikis, and your modern behemoths like Gamespot and IGN (which were around back then, too). I'm honestly a bit sick of the news/previews cycle and just ignore this stuff (along with sales numbers... barf) for the sake of reading interesting articles about interesting subjects by interesting writers. This is why I try to be a force of good in the world of games journalism; while I occasionally write the all-in-good-fun-but-accepted-with-pure-vitriol fluff piece, I usually try to shoot for ideas or angles that usually go unexplored by the Top Ten Tens the Ever Tenned nature of mainstream web culture. I encourage you, fellow games journalists, to do the same -- even though it may mean being stuck in permanent freelancer status like yours truly. Cry me a River Raid.

[Minor correction to the 1UP Article: All instances of "Ghideon Zhi" should read "Gideon Zhi." This is what happens when web sites can no longer afford to hire copy editors to fix my stupid mistakes.]

Sam and Max is Finally Great Again

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:21:08 GMT

Steam's recent summer sale drained about 50 bucks from my bank account over the last week -- I'm a sucker for cheap games that I'll never, ever play -- and, as I found myself caught up in the throes of Capitalism, Sam and Max season 3 somehow ended up on my computer. Now, I wasn't the biggest fan of Telltale's new Sam and Max revival -- the games were competent, but not all that funny -- so it took a half-off sale to shove me down from the fence I'd been riding about buying their newest rabbit and dog adventure. I'd spent the last two seasons of Sam and Max getting burned out by the midway point, so I was a bit wary about this new one; still, I think the Telltale guys are genuinely great, and like to give them my money whenever possible.

I started playing episode one, The Penal Zone, on a boring Saturday night, and could not escape my PC until three in the morning. It took almost four years, but these guys finally figured out how to take the classic adventure game format to the next level.

The first two seasons of Sam and Max really, really bothered me with their blandness. In fact, they got under my skin so much that I went on to write a preachy blog post about the issue, then a feature for Gamasutra based on the same idea. It wasn't that these seasons were unfunny in an offensive kind of way; rather, their humor barely registered with me. The jokes were predictable, and the secondary characters ranged from boring (Sybil) to annoying (The Soda Poppers, Hugh Bliss, etc.), with the irritating sense that the writers found these creations (and themselves) far funnier than the audience did. Plus, it didn't help that these first two seasons of Sam and Max were almost slavishly traditional to the old dialogue and inventory-based LucasArts style -- it worked in the 90s, but playing eleven similar games over two years grew incredibly tiresome.

In some ways, it's obvious why season 3 of Sam and Max is so good; the production values, for one, really make the focus on dialogue much more tolerable, since you're given vastly improved camera angles, better lighting, and animation that comes quite close to the bounciness of Steve Purcell's original comic. Aesthetically, this season feels more like a "real" video game than the often cheap and stiff look of past Telltale productions. Given that I paid what amounts to about three bucks per episode, I was genuinely surprised by the visual trickery on display, and looked forward to revisiting old locations, if only to see how much Telltale improved on its past work.

But the new "system" -- for lack of a better term -- at work in The Penal Zone is the main reason this game had me in its grasp for four precious weekend hours. In this new season, Max starts off with three new psychic powers (don't worry, he has them for a reason), which I imagine will be expanded in upcoming episodes. In The Penal Zone, Max can look at selected items to see brief snippets of the future, transport himself and anyone nearby to any phone he knows the number of, and for a brief moment in the game, he can copy two-dimensional objects via a kind of silly putty and then turn himself into 3-D representations of said objects. Even the two powers available throughout most of The Penal Zone add an insane amount of variety to puzzles; instead of finding item A to use on item B, you'll have to think outside the box and be a bit craftier. Max's Future Vision also provides a subtle hint system, as it often shows minor snippets of future puzzle solutions -- though they're so out-of-context that they only provide the most gentle of prodding.

Even the writing of season 3 has improved leaps and bounds over anything Telltale has done in the past -- which is strange, because the designers/writers haven't changed much, if at all. But there's a general sense that they're trying much, much harder than before, as shown in the duo's unpredictable banter and some genuinely risque (and dark) material. I'm pretty sure that I laughed more during this single episode than all of seasons 1 and 2 combined.

And here's the best part: I didn't have to look up a single hint. Even though the designers at Telltale are veterans of the genre, there's about one puzzle per episode where I always have to retreat to GameFAQs and exclaim, "There's no way I could have figured that out!" This first episode is by no means easy, but it's completely lacking in the department of bullshit. Everything works neatly once you understand the logic of the game, and the possibilities inherent in Max's new abilities. The solutions are genuinely clever and rewarding, and require you to think more than a few steps ahead. I don't think I've seen a classic adventure game so smart and intuitive with its mechanics since Day of the Tentacle -- which happens to be my favorite of the LucasArts pantheon.

Congrats, Telltale; you've completely redeemed yourself in the eyes of this old adventure gamer. Now, please don't mess up those Back to the Future games so we can be best friends forever.

P.S. - Buy Sam and Max season 3, guys.

On Futurama's Return

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:26:00 GMT

I didn't care much for the four recent Futurama movies. Outside of Bender's Big Score, which actually surprised me with its structural complexity, Futurama's first revival squandered the majority of its potential awesomeness. Of course, you could blame the movies' running time, which quadrupled the amount of storytelling necessary in a normal TV episode, but the problems went far beyond pacing. Simply put, these movies were written for the nerdiest of Futurama superfans -- so, really, you think I would have enjoyed them more. But in the past decade-or-so, I have become self-aware and realized that nerds generally have terrible senses of humor, and are fit to wallow in memes and superfluous references that make them feel as if someone out there understands them. (Hence the popularity of Scott Pilgrim oh you better believe I went there.)

Instead of giving us the same amount of quality seen in the show's first four seasons, the Futurama Tetralogy loosely scattered some dull jokes over the course of 90 minutes while giving us minor variations on characters' shtick. I mostly blame the fact that these productions lacked the potential refinement of a real writers' room (if I remember correctly from the commentaries, the writing process differed from that of the TV series, due to budget issues and also the 2007 WGA strike), but really, the Futurama staff felt content to make these feature-length productions a celebration of their beloved characters rather than focus on interesting things for these characters to do. And I'm still a little peeved that they didn't have the guts to kill off Kif in Beast with a Billion Backs; he started as an interesting foil to Zapp Brannigan, but soon devolved into an unlikable, gutless coward.

I've had the chance to watch the first two episodes of Futurama's sixth season (now airing on Comedy Central), and while things aren't perfect, this is a far better return to form than the last, feature-length revival. For one, these characters, and the show's rapid-fire style of humor, just work better in 22-minute increments. There's a troubling sense of "let's explain everything in the last minute" that haunts these first few episodes, but I'm confident that we'll see some tighter plotting once the writers settle back into the old format. The only thing that really troubles me is the whole Fry and Leela relationship plot; the original series ended fantastically, since it left the fate of these two characters up to the viewers. The previous emotional moments of Futurama worked so well because they were so few in number; episodes like The Sting and The Why of Fry felt special, because their tone was so atypical from what's essentially an extremely mean-spirited show.

But these two first two episodes keep hitting the Fry and Leela Button without realizing what made this dynamic special in the first place. I honestly think that a meaningful and interesting (not to mentioned sustained) relationship between these two characters is impossible, given their general flatness, but I hope the writers at least assign some sort of permanent state to this dynamic, rather than tease us with a possibility that's been dangling in front of our faces for more than a decade. I don't even think Twilight fans have it this rough.

Though I'm still optimistic -- cautiously optimistic -- that this new season will get better. Though if I see that goddamned Hypnotoad one more time, someone's getting an angry letter.

I HATE.

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:18:37 GMT

I was going to post about Futurama today, but one of my 1UP.com articles went live last night and it's generated so much hilarious, misguided rage that I must show the world. For the record, it's a lighthearted for-entertainment-purposes-only casting of a fictional Final Fantasy VII movie, so comments like these are perfectly understandishable:

To the author of this article Bob....

Posted: 8 hours ago by eye_dig_graves

You might want to check to make sure you have a penis after choosing that twilight assclown to be Cloud. What did you're boyfriend help you dream up the list?

it doesn't matter who they picked

Posted: 15 hours ago by Kevroeques

1up's gay-ism just went through the roof. the sad part is that i merely looked at this for the train-wreck nature of it, and i fear my life is gayer for even having glanced at it. and before anybody jumps up out of their seat- i mean gay not as an insult to homosexuals, but as an insult to things that are gay. i'm not PC. shut up.

I encourage you to read all of the comments; they may be more entertaining than the article itself. In other rage-based news, I noticed today that a similar 1UP.com article with a very similar reception was still getting comments a year after being published. Here's the best one:

SHUT THE HELL UP BOB MACKEY YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!!!

Posted: Apr 04, 2010 12:00AM PST by EmilCastagnier

YOU BITCH, BASTARD, ASSHOLE, JACKASS, ETC. ETC.!!! WHAT THE HELL GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO TALK ABOYUT THESE CHARACTERS LIKE THIS!!!! AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION, AT THE END OF TALES OF SYMPHONIA : DAWN OF A NEW WORLD, EMIL IS WILLING TO BECOME A LIVING LOCK TO SEAL THE DOOR TO THE DEMON WORLD FOR ALL ETERNITY BY HAVING HIS FRIENDS KILL HIM!!!! SO DON'T YOU DARE INSULT HIM, OR SQUALL OR SORA!!!! Tidus honestly was pretty cool but I was never that much of a fan, so... yeah, be a little more like a true RPGist. Or rather, like a high-level otaku (although chances are that you aren't familiar with that specific Japanese word). BUT DON'T YOU EVER INSULT EMIL YOU BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love both hatred and my job. Please hire me so I can bring this level of intelligent discourse to YOUR website.

The Woman in the Window

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:35:15 GMT

The Woman in the Window (1944) Dir. Fritz Lang - Most of the time, noir can be fun to watch because of the cleverness on display by characters caught up in desperate self-preservation; alliances change, crosses are doubled, and minor acts end up snowballing into something immense. The Woman in the Window is the anti-noir in this respect because, simply put, our fugitive protagonists are dumb. Very, very dumb.

This isn't to say that Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennet's characters are each equipped with debilitating learning disabilities; when Robinson's Professor Wanley finds himself killing a man in self-defense while in the apartment of a beautiful woman (and with his wife out of town, no less), he and his accessory simply aren't equipped with the know-how needed to properly dispose of a body and eliminate evidence. Keeping this in mind, The Woman in the Window feels like a subtle commentary on crime movies, as it shows that crime and criminals can often be shockingly predictable without ever stating this explicitly.

After the deed is done, most of The Woman in the Window is devoted to following Robinson's character around as he stews and guilt and anxiety to the point that he nearly gives himself away multiple times. Whatley is also unlucky enough to be friends with the district attorney, and through various conversations with the man, he finds out that nearly every step of his plan has already been predicted. Even the dark side of justice can see through Whatley's cover-up, as the dead man's bodyguard quickly catches on to the pair's last-minute escape plans that would have passed in a lesser film.

The only downside of Woman in the Window is that its ending is one of those "Hays Code last five minutes Hail Mary play" sort of things where all of the preceding misery, desperation, and darkness is quickly wallpapered over with some artificial lightness. This is not a spoiler at all to tell you that The Woman in the Window actually tries to make you believe that Whatley's misadventures in murder were all a dream. It's a last-minute save that doesn't actually play into any aspect of the film at all; but, given its artificiality, this cheesy wrap up can easily be ignored.

4/5

Toy Story 3

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:16:19 GMT

Toy Story 3 (2010) Dir. Lee Unkrich - Thanks to both income and apathy, I usually only see one first-run movie at the theater every year -- and, more often than not, it's from Pixar. As someone who once had an intensely short-lived dream of being an animator, other selections from the genre tempt me so; but there's something about seeing a Pixar movie in the right environment that makes it an experience, rather than a 90-minute silver screen staredown. So my opinion on Toy Story 3 really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that keeps these aforementioned BobFacts (tm) in mind.

That said, Toy Story 3 is a sequel to a movie that really didn't need a sequel -- which, in turn, was a sequel to a movie that really didn't need a sequel. With 2, Pixar took what could have been a direct-to-video cash-in and turned it into a feat of both technology and storytelling, exploring new themes about life through some very likable characters. 3 doesn't yield quite the same unexpected greatness as the last sequel, but Unkrich and his crew manage to do a fine job of bringing these characters' "lives" to a fitting conclusion -- all while managing to avoid the easy trap of reveling in nostalgia and revisiting old shtick.

While the first two movies touch a little on the concept of abandonment, Toy Story 3 fully explores this inherent aspect of these toys' tragically nightmarish lives, as they're forced to decide on their future after their owner leaves for college. Previously, the toys' ultimate destination throughout their adventures in relocation would be the safe haven of Andy's home; in 3, the struggle is found in deciding just what "home" means. And in traditional Pixar fashion, the journey -- both literally and emotionally -- is just as harrowing as ever, filled with countless "out of the frying pan, into the fire, then, into a bigger fire" moments that the studio's made their signature.

Toy Story 3 isn't my favorite Pixar movie, or my favorite Toy Story movie; the story doesn't feel nearly as fresh as 2's, and I couldn't help but groan at a few tired jokes and concepts that would be more at home in a Dreamworks production. Still, this was a story worth telling, and I couldn't help but feel a little jealous of the Toy Story fans a bit younger than me who grew up with the characters, just as Andy did. I'm sure this story of growing up and moving on was strangely meaningful to them in ways I can only imagine.

4/5