Friday Top 5: Fruits

Alan has chastised me for listing my top 5s from the top down, since there is no suspense that way. I guess I see his point. I'll do it his way from here on out.

Top 5 Fruits.

Yer damn right. We have a fruit bowl in the living area. We've had fruit bowls in the living area before this, and they never stay for too long since fruit is a semi-regular occurrence in our apartment. Gazing out over my Xbox controller, I see the fruit and I smell the sweet biting aroma of the pears and oranges in there, and I salivate.

5) Oranges

Oranges are great. They make orange juice, primarily. I, however, do not eat oranges in fruit form because they seem to be too much work, and they leave little dingles in my teeth. Also however, however, orange flavored things are perhaps my favorite things, which is why oranges make it into the list. Orange Tic-Tacs just can't be beat.

4) Kiwi

I haven't had Kiwi in ages. I love them. If they weren't so damn hard to find and expensive I'd eat more of them, but they are hard to find and expensive. Sweet and sour, melty and a bit crunchy, they have it where it counts. I guess it sucks that you need to skin them, although I've never tried eating the skin, maybe it's really good.

3) Pears

Pears might have gotten the #2 spot, if it weren't for Honey Crisp apples. The pear is a great fruit, supremely sweet, gooshy (technical term), and green. I can only assume that they're good for you, but I don't know for sure. The main issue that I have with grapes is that they have a very specific "excellence zone" where they are really good. Too ripe and they are hard and I don't like them. Too old and they fall apart in your hands. When they're just right, though, they are just great.

2) Apples

Apples come in many different forms, which is what makes them kind of a tricky business. Green apples are pretty OK, though I can only eat them once a year or so. Red apples are the real apples, though they are just as complicated. Honey Crisp are by far the best in the apple world, though they are often out of season and quite expensive. Most other red apples are too bitter or not crisp enough for me.

1) Bananas

Hands down, best best ever. Stupid people call them proof of intelligent design. I call them really good fruit. They are perfect when they are still green, in my eyes, since at that point they have a bit of a sour flavor that just hits the spot for me. Nutritious delicious, Bananas are far and away #1.

Labels: top 5

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Spring

Spring is around the corner. Given, it's only February, but today was 45 degrees in Milwaukee. Biking to work I found myself stripping layers of protective winterwear, arriving at my destination with coat flapping in the breeze of my passing.

It's been an interesting Winter, since I've been stripped of my free bus pass that UWM provides. I could have easily counterfitted one (it's just a little sticker), but I decided instead to try and bike through the cold. Now that the weather has started to show signs of thaw, I can say that it was worth all the frozen beard hairs.

They have a name for the depressive feeling that arrives with winter's onset, but they have no real word for the elation of its passing. Everyone experiences the day when it is comparatively warm, it's hard to keep your self from smiling and inhaling deep breaths of newly melted Snow Air. It needs some kind of a label. If Seasonal Affective Disorder is the name for winter's negative mental effect, then Seasonal Elative Syndrome shall be its counterpart.

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Friday Top 5: Maxis

Everyone has heard of the Sims and SimCity, but Maxis was so much more than those two titles. In its day, this game company was as close to god as I could imagine, presenting me with seemingly endless boutiful gaming treats on which I could gorge myself incessantly. For creative kids, the maxis line was the pinnacle of gaming.

Sadly, these days Maxis is owned by EA, and EA says that they can't make anything besides the occasional Sims 2 Add-on and possibly a new SimCity game every 5 years or so.

1) Sim City 4

SimCity 4 sits at the very pinnacle of sim games all across the globe. This game is so fun for sim-fanatics like myself, I just don't know where to start. Even after a few years, the game still looks fantastic. The building models are all beautifully realistic, and the landscapes are similarly intriguing. The gameplay is pretty intense, much harder than the earlier SimCity games, simply because the game accounts for every single inhabitant of the city. Also, the game introduced the reigon concept, which is that the neighbors that you dealt with in previous games are now also under your control, are in fact entire playable cities of their own.

Sim City 4 is simply the most fun that I have ever had with a creative Sim game, and it is likely to remain that way for quite some time. I have often wondered what the folks at the new Maxis could do to improve on this game, and I am often left with minor improvments like smooth zooms and better magnification.

Perhaps the best thing about this game is it's ability for modding. The SimCity 4 modding community is still going very strong, churning out new buildings daily. Need some different seaports? A bigger park? A specific building from your hometown? It's probably already online. This customizability allows for some truly awe-inspiring city planning.

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2) Sim Farm

Sim Farm was simple, but loads of fun for me personally. It didn't get a big following because it was a farm simulation, and most people pride themselves on not being farmers, but as a kid growing up in rural MN, I was hooked right away. The game centers around planting crops and raising livestock, as you might expect, with little tidbits of extra gameplay thrown in.

The game was pretty easy to master, (strawberries are the key) and as such didn't provide a huge challenge, but it was still a ton of fun.

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3) Sim City 2000

Sim City 2000 defined Sim games for the new millenium. The name of the game was oddly prohpetic in that respect. The original SimCity was fun, but the lack of ability to zone freely kept me from speding a lot of time with it. When SimCity 2000 came out, I was awe-struck.

I could design cities in 3D, on top of a mountain, and zone however I wanted to! Getting arcologies always tended to end a game for me, but I was never at a loss for replay value, since the terrain generator that was bundled with the game provided an endless stream of new and difficult terrains to grow a city on. This one would have gotten 2nd place, but Sim Farm was more laid-back fun, whereas SimCity 2000 was really about construction.

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4) Sim Ant

Sim Ant was one of the first games that Maxis put out after SimCity. They didn't spend too much effort on it, but it was still a great game. The premise was that you were an ant, and that you had an empire to build. Pick up peas, drop them off, fight off red ants, invade the house, rule with an iron mandible. The game combined first-person elements in the control of your ant with the more over-arching colony control of SimCity. Good fun for all ages.

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5) Sim Tower

Sim Tower is very similar to SimCity or Sim Farm, in that it simulated you as the overseer of a thing to be built, in this case a fledgling tower. Level after level goes up, you unlock ballrooms, hotels, penthouses, etc, everything is pretty straightforward. Still 10x as fun as the Sims.

Labels: top 5

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Friday Top 5: Comedians

Stand up comedians, to be exact. Given, many stand up comedians migrate elsewhere in the realms of media-production, but they are usually at their "purest" when they are holding a mic and talking at groups of people.

If I were to include all comedians, this list would start with Stephen Colbert, but since I am not, it starts with:

1) Demetri Martin.

Demetri Martin is young. He has only been on the scene for a few years, yet he has risen to the top like a rocket. This man is a genius of the diagram, or the 1 1/2 liner.

“I saw a guy at a party wearing a leather jacket and I thought, ‘That is cool.’ But then I saw another guy wearing a leather vest and I thought, ‘That is not cool’. Then I figured it out: ‘Cool’ is all about leather sleeves.”

“Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. And when I’m swimming, sometimes I’m not sure which one it is. I gotta go by the outfit. Pants - uh oh. Bathing suit - okay. Naked - we’ll see. Should I be swimming faster, or am I getting laid?”

“Some jokes are short and elegant, like a mathematical proof or a midget in a ballgown.”

2) Zach Galifianakis

The best, most understated, and mostsurprising humor that I've ever experienced. He's all about being anything but normal. Watch the comedians of comedy documentary for a good idea of his style.

"Three years ago my sister was diagnosed with multiple personalities, and there's nothing funny about that. But she phoned me the other day...and my caller ID exploded."

"Guys, have you ever woken up with an erection, and then you realize you're just in a massage chair at Brookstone...and then you yell out: I'll take it!"

3) Jim Gaffigan

Jim is probably the most "traditional" comedian on this list, but he makes it work. He has a lot of "what's the deal with..." type jokes, but they're so absurd that they work. That, plus he uses a variety of voices... you have to see it to believe it.

"How'd we come up with the robe? Was some guy just like, 'Hey, I've got an idea! Why don't we make a coat out of a towel? You can have a little belt that goes around. You could dunk the belt in the toilet! Have a toilet belt.'"

4) Eddie Izzard

A British Transvestite, Eddie doesn't normally look like the above photo. Or maybe he does, I'm not exactly sure. Eddie is a really witty guy, very smart and quick. He knows a lot about history, and makes use of that in his comedy. A lot of his jokes are veryBritish, and very silly, in the vein of Monty Python and Douglas Adams.

“But with dogs, we do have “bad dog.” Bad dog exists. “Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!” The dog is saying, “Who are you to judge me? You human beings who’ve had genocide, war against people of different creeds, colors, religions, and I stole a biscuit?! Is that a crime? People of the world!” “Well, if you put it that way, I think you’ve got a point. Have another biscuit, sorry.””

5) Mitch Hedburg

The absolute king of the one-liner, Mitch's shows were long strings of single jokes with almost nothing holding them together. His comedy was good enough that he had no need for transitions. He died recently, and we lost a great comedian, before he had a chance to make his hour-long comedy special.

"I order the club sandwich all the time, but I'm not even a member, man. I don't know how I get away with it."

If you find yourself lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house. "Well, I was lost, but now I live here. I have severely improved my predicament!"

Labels: top 5

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Friday Top 5: Car Racing Games

This week's top 5 is all about the racing genre of video games, and specifically, car racing. I make the distinction of car racing because the entire racing genre could include a myriad of games from snowboarding to hovercraft, and I'm not going to leave myself that wide open.

1) Rallisport Challenge II

No competition. This game is the most fun that I've ever had in a racing game. The graphics are top-notch, the cars are all a blast, and the settings are awe-inspiring. Being a rally-centered game, the races are all about sliding and careening around corners, making it a blast to race. The tracks are easy to start with, and amazingly difficult at the end. Everything about this game screams "Masterpiece."

2) Top Gear

Almost tied with Burnout for the number 2 slot, I gave this game the second place because it was the first real racing game that I was impressed with. All the earlier games were too flat and uninteresting, but Top Gear changed all that. The graphics were good for its day, and the gameplay was out of this world. Not only were you racing against competitors for first place, you could choose your car! PLUS, the cars that you could choose from changed over time! 16-bit fun times.

3) Burnout 3

The racing in burnout is all about speed. Everything in this game is set up to make your brain twist around in your head. During the races, the edges of the screen stretch and blur to give the effect of supersonic speed, and the races themselves are centered around crashing, which is the title's main selling point. The Crash Mode is what really sets this game apart. Smashing a fire truck into a slew of Monday morning traffic is just rewarding, I don't care who you are.

4) Carmageddon 2

Carmageddon 2 was what Grand Theft Auto got it's 3D ideas from. Smooshing pedestrians for 'credits' and having a sandbox-like atmosphere to do it in makes this the first real open-ended racing game that I'd played. I guess the point is to get through all the levels and buy up all the cars but I never got too much further than the first few stages (not to say that I didn't play it a lot, I played it a LOT), they were just that entertaining. I believe that it was the "Cunning Stunt Bonus" that brought me back each time.

5) Powerslide

The precursor to good rally games, this game was just about its namesake. Powerslide around corners, powerslide up the side of a dam... Fun fun fun. No point really, I never played anything more than the demo, but the demo was more than enough powersliding for me. Even the one level in the demo was far better than the super-deep racing games like Need For Speed and Gran Turismo. Maybe I'm a sliding junkie, who knows.

Labels: cars, top 5

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