J. Michael Shearer's Passing Thoughts: 2012

Well, here we are at the last part of the last thing I think I've got to post from my old files. I had honestly intended to have this up well before now, but we all know how life away from the blog can be, and sadly, that just didn't happen. Once again, for those of you who may have been waiting, I do apologize for the amount of time this took.

We'll be starting this off with what is probably my favorite host segment of all the ones I ever wrote while I was doing MiSTings. I was, and still am, really, a Red Green fan, and the Adventures With Bill segment was one of my favorites from the show that at least used to run on PBS here in the States. Writing a host segment where I combined that with playing pinball in an arcade was really fun. I don't recall how well it actually went over with the audience, but I enjoyed writing it.

Also, my favorite single joke is in this part, as well. I think you'll know it when you see it.
So, without further ado, here's what may well be the last thing from my old files.

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Brony Weirdness, Gangnam Style

Because there's not enough craziness in the world, apparently...

That Art I Warned Of, Part One

Well, folks, here it is, all in one post. Just for the sake of convenience. And there's a jump to save space on the front page

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #30: Highway To Hell (NSFW Links Within)

A little AC/DC seems appropriate right about now...

Cheap Shoes...

Used to buy them all the time and be OK.

CRAP ART: More Stuff

Just getting things started off with a little something simple here, folks.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #29: Pwa!

You know something? I'm getting a serious sense of deja vu off this, and I'm pretty sure I haven't done this part of the game yet.

Messing With Stuff

Just going to be messing around with some stuff here, folks.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #28: Of Lilipeas and Dumbasses...

Doncha just hate it when plans go wrong?

More About Kitty

Here's something I may do a YouTube video about or talk about on my uStream channel next time I broadcast.

Passing Thoughts, 8/27/12

Sometimes it just feels good to sit and write.

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #13: Audiophile

So, I'm revisiting a few locations, just to grind a bit and maybe have a higher percentage of items collected.

Cool At Last

Of course, I'm probably jinxing it now...

Back At It

I haven't been doing as much freeform writing as I'd like lately.

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #12: Class Change

Good news and bad below the jump, folks.

From The Old Floppies #19: MiSTing of "Digimon: Digidefenders Episode 5", part 2

I should begin this one by apologizing to those of you who have been waiting for this. I've been busy with things offline lately and have just been forgetting. I suspect I've also forgotten something else from my FTOF series as well. I'll look into that and fix it as soon as I can. Until then, let's get down to business on this one, shall we? Italics read in Majel Barrett's voice, a la the Star Trek computer.

Last time, on JMST3K: Digidefenders Episode 5: Jesse and Leomon dress up as characters from The Red Green Show to keep from getting beaten up! The Commander sends a team of two to Japan to almost meet the Tamers! A giant Boarmon goes on a rampage in Shinjuku! And Jesse loses his glasses to Renamon in a failed attempt to impersonate Red Green!

And now, the continuation...

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TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #11: Save States, Soft Resets And Doing It Wrong...

Save states and the soft reset function Sony built into these PlayStation consoles really came in handy, and I still did it wrong...

My Cat Kitty

Writing about Bravo, the cat from the rescue center, the other day, got me to thinking about my own cat.

Number 400: Little Bravo of the FFRC

So, I guess I'll be doing a special 400th post after all.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #27: Sugar Maple Forrest (Some NSFW Links)

This bit of commentary is going to take a turn towards NSFW territory, folks. That's one reason why there's always a jump for folks reading this from the front page of my blog.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #26: Tristram And The Elixer

That would be a Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (playlist here) reference, for folks not in the know.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #25: Professor Edgar K. B. Montrose...

So, today it's off to bomb building class with the Fa'Diel Academy of Magic.

VLOG: Reflections On An Evening At The Fair

So, I went to the fair this evening when I probably should have been trying to figure out how my new phone works.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #24: o/~ On Top Of Spaghetti... o/~

o/~ All covered with cheese... o/~

From The Old Floppies #18: MiSTing of "Digidefenders Episode 5" Part 1

There's more to the title than that, but we'll get to see that in a bit. First, though, I think I should set this up for context.

The last one of these I posted was of a junk email from late in my career as a MST3K fan writer. One of, of not the, last bit of fan fiction I based such a thing on was a fan-made series based on the third season of the Digimon franchise, titled Tamers, which is worth checking out. The series author went by the handle Phantom1, and, as memory serves, was part of the MiSTing community as well. There was a general solicitation that went out for fans of Digimon Tamers who were also MiSTing authors to apply the "treatment" to the first so-called episode of the series, and I took the call. I rather enjoyed the original story, and Phanto, as I called him, and I struck a deal to continue the series, both with and without the commentary, as long as we could. This arrangement lasted a surprisingly long time, all things considered.

What follows is not only my favorite in the series, but also my all-time favorite amongst the MiSTings that I personally wrote. So, here we have part one of three or four of Digimon Digidefenders: Episode 5!

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TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #10: Lake Pillsbury

And I think the Doughboy may be shilling his crescent rolls in this one, too...

So, Furry?

It's a site I sometimes consider posting art to.

Updates, 8/4/12

Cue the Unsolved Mysteries theme, I guess.

Thirty-Five Years

In a way, it's amazing I've managed to stay alive this long.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #23: Aw Hell...

Kinda knew I'd wind up going there eventually...

That Old Feeling

You know the one, where you know something won't end well, but you've gotta do it anyway.

VLOG: Birthday Project trailer

Just a little something I hope to have at least written in time for my birthday next week.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #17: Game Review of "The Three Stooges" video game for I-Mockery

It's been awhile since I've done one of these, and I've been meaning to get around to it since then.

In this case, what we've got here is a video game review I wrote for a website called I-Mockery. It's one of those sites that's been around for awhile in one form or another. They've got some cool stuff there. Amongst my favorites are the Pixel Pals sprite comic and an article about a failed Disney resort in the Caribbean. Back in the day, they used to take user-submitted video game reviews, and I had an account there with which I did exactly that maybe a half dozen times. Just my luck, in an effort to come up with a cheap and somewhat lazy post for tonight, I came across a final draft of one of those reviews. Interestingly enough, it's the one for the Three Stooges NES game that came out in the late 1980s or early 90s, which I mention in my video review of the recent movie of the same name by the Farley Brothers.

Now, what I'm posting here is just the plain text version I wrote without the supplemental in-game images that I submitted alongside the review. Those can be found on the review page hosted by I-Mockery, along with additional info I couldn't find because I didn't know then and haven't had the inclination to find out in the eight years since then.

So, here we go, folks. Check it out below the jump!
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The Day In General: July 25, 2012

A little busy, but not necessarily in ways I might have wanted to be.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #22: More Indiana Jones...?

Or JMShearer And The Land Of The Golden Seed, perhaps?

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #21: Pressing Ahead, I Guess...

Off to Lumina, one way or another...

Because I Can

That's why.

Murphy's Law

It's still in full effect, it seems...

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #8: Fifty-Three Steps To Success, Part One

This'll be a short one, but important all the same.

A Bit Bored...

Might as well make a little something of it, anyway, I guess.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #20: Latrine Miner

OK, so maybe I didn't fuck this up as badly as I had thought.

Not Quite A Break...

I just don't have a lot of decent freeform topics right now.

So, 375 Posts, Huh?

OK, it's kind of a strange number to be doing this, and it's not much of a milestone, all things considered.

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #7: “I VANT TO SUCK!”

“YOUR BLUD!!!”

The Idea

Gotta start this story thing someplace, after all.

Good News And Bad

They do seem to go hand in hand...

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #6: Dwarves At Mt. Duregar

There's only one thing to talk about here, but it's an important thing.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #19: JMShearer and the Stolen Dudbear Idol

This is kind of an Indiana Jones sort of quest, after all, I guess...

More Than I Thought...

I've got quite a bit of junk paper around my work desk.

New Tires

It's about time I got around to getting new tires on my car.

Finally...

Things may actually be going my way again.

Summer Schedule 2012

If I keep getting the same hours I've been getting at my day job the last three weeks, here's how things might look going forward this summer.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #18: Now I've Done It...

Sometimes I hate myself for dicking around in this game...

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #17: A More Normal Course

With the first Elazul quest out of the way, I'm on a more normal course for the way I usually play this game. Things could get a bit interesting here, folks.

Where To Begin...?

Well, maybe more how to begin, because I already know the “where” part, from several angles...

Not Feeling So Swell

I've not been feeling so great lately, and I've fallen behind on several projects as a result.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #16: Easy Peasy

Well, I promised a mission last time, and I've put this one off for long enough anyway, I suppose.

Things I Miss: Fanfiction

Didn't I do this topic at least once already?

Have a Derpy Day...

Here's one more thing from my DeviantART page.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #15: Yar Har Fiddle De Fee...

Being a pirate is alright with me...

A Little More Art...

Here's a couple new pics I posted to DeviantArt over the weekend.

Choices

A lot of my regrets come from these.

Regrets

I'd rather live with them than without them.

Making Time For Video

I still mean what I said around the first of the year about doing more video stuff.

Freeform Writing

That's what I started this blog for, and why I was curious about the video game stuff before.

The Character I'd Rather Be

I was actually pretty close once, and I didn't even know it at the time.

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #5: Stuff And Things

This might not advance the plot much, but some interesting things will get done.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #16: "Schriver's Selves"

Back when I was in college, working on my bachelors degree, one thing I was hoping I could possibly do was get published in a science fiction magazine of some sort. So, I wrote what I thought was a story that would pass an editorial board and submitted it to a few places. On the list were Asimov's Magazine, the Sci-Fi Channel's website/e-zine at the time, and a few others that I've since forgotten over the years. When the first attempt, which you're about to see, failed, I wrote something I thought would be better and tried again. That attempt didn't work out any better for me, but at least I can say I tried, if nothing else. I really wish I'd held onto the rejection letters a bit longer, just as mementos, but such was not the case. More on that, and the other story, as well, may be forthcoming.

For now, though, here's my first attempt at getting something published: the ultra-short story "Schriver's Selves".

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TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #14: Back To The Desert

And maybe Back To The Future, too?

Not For The Web

Not so long ago, I wrote about how some things never get past the first or second draft.

A Dilemma

I guess I should have seen this coming when I started.

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #4: A Pain In The Astos

This one was a while in coming, but it's worth the wait.

Plants...

Well, the bugs that eat them, really...

Video Games Are Still Popular, Huh?

So, video games are still popular things to talk about, huh?

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #13: Ghostbusters, Fa'Diel Division

Seriously, though, who ya gonna call?

Doctor Sonic...?

Well, the Doctor does have a Sonic screwdriver, after all...

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #3: Pirates Of Pravoka

I know I should probably get on with Legend of Mana, but I want to do a Text Play post, and at this point in the night, I would do better to do something I'm familiar with instead.

The Good Thing About Drafts

There's a reason why I write them instead of doing direct-posting material.

More Bad Art For You

Because we all knew it had to come eventually.

Trying Something

This could get interesting, folks.

Slow Going

Still working, of course, but all the same...

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #2: Beating Garland

So, not anything like a similarly-titled Dire Straits song, but the title still works.

Bad Rotation...?

It's kind of understandable, though.

Stockpiling

I'm working on something of a slush pile of stuff to push out as need be.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #12: Fireworks Fireworks Fireworks

It would almost be cool if this dungeon were a Beetlejuice reference, but alas, it's not.

Random Word Number Eight

And nothing more.

TEXT PLAY SIDE GAME: Final Fantasy (NES 1990/PS 2003 [Origins]): Issue #1: Getting Started

Here's one I've been meaning to get to for awhile now, and since tonight's not a good night for Legend of Mana, now's as good a time as any, I suppose.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #11: More Running Around (Branch B)

A little running around here so I can do a little of a different kind of running in a bit.

Nutrition Guides?

In a burger joint?

More Wasted Pixels...

The description is, for the most part, from when I posted this to deviantArt a moment ago.

Games Maybe I Should Try: Driver 3

It's not because I'm a fan of the “mafia underworld” genre.

Oh, Wait. Summer.

I've kinda forgotten that I sorta hate summer now that I'm an adult.

That Bad Art I Was Talking About...

Here's one bit of it, folks.

Wasting Pixels

And space on the web, too.

Games Maybe I Should Try: Sly Cooper

It's not the only PS2 game that maybe I should try, but it's the one I'm gonna open this series with because I've found a weird fascination with the characters lately.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #10: Tutti Fruti Summer Love

Perhaps Gunther was singing about penguins in this video.

Still More On Fan Fiction

I've got a ton and a half of ideas for various works of fiction I want to write. I just need to motivate myself to actually sit down and make it happen.

Late Night Math Problem

The answer is 15.

A Little Blogger Weirdness

I mentioned this at the end of the Hamtarro crossover fic I posted this morning.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #15: Crossover Fanfic "Grand Theft HamHams" Part 4 of 4

Here we are, the end at last. The final two chapters of Grand Theft HamHams. As I've said before, I'm actually kind of impressed with myself for managing to make this particular fanfic go as long as it did. But end it did, thankfully. So, let's finish this off, shall we?

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Gold 14

A "Random Numbers" post, just so that I can have something to push out quick.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #14: Crossover Fanfic "Grand Theft HamHams" Part 3 of 4

So here we are, pretty much in the home stretch for this particular part of FtOF. There's only two chapters left after the three I'm posting here, and I think I'll be just as glad to be done with it now as I was back in 2003, when I originally wrote this. Oddly enough, this is one of the few fan fics I ever had people admit to reading by leaving comments. I'll have to see if I can find the one other that really got the responses. But that'll be for another time.

For now, here's part 3 of 4 of our bad crossover fan fiction.

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Bad Game-Based Movies

Since it seems to be a thing again, why not give Hollywood a few more ideas, huh?

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #09: End Of The Line? (Branch A)

Team Fortress 2 has an answer about my continuing this branch after this issue.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #13: "Grand Theft HamHams", Part 2 of 4

Sorry about the delay in getting this out, folks. As I've mentioned before, it's been a crazy couple weeks. Things have stabilized a bit for the time being, so maybe I'll be able to get things rolling a little more regularly here.

But anyway, the story at hand. Grand Theft HamHams. This will put us to the halfway point in the story, up to six chapters of eleven. I'm actually kind of surprised that I managed to keep it going that long, now that I've got almost a decade between myself and actually writing it.

Other than that, I'm at a bit of a loss for what else to say about this right now, so let's get into the story, shall we?
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A Busy Week

Even I have them from time to time.

Back To School...?

Maybe I should go after all...

Summertime Already?

Sum-sum-summertime...?

Stuff Got Done...

I've been doing things lately. Just nothing I could put here.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #08: A Little Running Around (Branch B)

I've been meaning to get to this for awhile now.

The JMichaelShearer Rumor Mill: I Need Cable TV To Watch Hulu?

OK, so I only half heard this one, and it was kind of late at the time, so I might be wrong.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #12: Crossover Fanfiction "Grand Theft HamHams", part 1 of 4

Back towards the end of my time as a full-fledged fan fiction author, I was something of a master of bad crossover stories. In one of the weirdest ideas I ever had, I sat down and wrote a story that was essentially the characters of an anime show called Hamtaro acting as though they were in a watered down version of Grand Theft Auto 3.

It came about when I noticed that a lot of the voices in the two seemed similar. One of the odd things about this story is that it got some of the most serious reviews when I posted it back in 2003. It should be interesting to see what happens now that I'm revisiting it. Check it out.
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Messing Around With The Scanner...

I mess around with my scanner from time to time. There's a reason I don't do that much...

Affiliate Ads...?

So, it seems I'm eligible for something called Google Affiliate Ads here.

o/~ 'Cuz This Is Filler... o/~

With apologies to Michael Jackson.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #11: Selections From "MacKedzie's Journal", Part Two

I've been meaning to get back to this for awhile, especially since this quasi-historical stuff I post seems to be relatively popular and I need to bring up my ad revenue a bit. It's interesting to see some of this stuff again. There's some that's good and just as much or more that I'm actually kind of glad that I'd forgotten.

I'm going to post three last entries from the pseudo-journal I did and then call it done with. It's been interesting to see it all again, and there are a few that I didn't look at, but I've posted enough now for folks to get the gist of what it was about, so I'll move on to other things I want to post from here.
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I Need Money...

Change! Ya got change? Help a guy out, will ya? Change!

Post Number 300

I could spend days trying to come up with something suitably epic and not do it, so I'll just do this instead.

So, Maybe Things Are Looking Up

Things might not be so bad after all.

Sometimes I Wonder: Consequences

I sometimes wonder about the consequences of the choices I make.

Random Word Number Seven

And nothing more.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #07: A Different Path (Branch B Start)

OK, so that whole Mindas thing wasn't working out the way I'd hoped, so let's try going a different way completely, shall we?

Stooge Overload: The Three Stooges In Orbit (1962)

Technically speaking, anyway.

Stooge Overload: Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959)

Well, with the Farrelly Brothers' Three Stooges movie out and me considering seeing it, why not talk a bit about other Stooges movies I've seen and like?

A Weird Thought: Nightcrawler Bedding

I gotta stop staying up so late...

From The Old Floppies: Issue #10: Selections from "MacKedzie's Journal", Part One

There are some things that make me realize I've made a few mistakes along the way to getting into this whole blogging thing. One of those things is a project I did in 2003 and early 2004 called "MacKedzie's Journal". Essentially, it was a thinly disguised blog that I was doing on Fiction Press. These were barely-fictionalized tellings of various things that had happened on a given day. I suspect that an early form of Blogger may have been around at the time, and if I'd have been using it then in a way even remotely like I do now, I may have actually gotten somewhere with it all.

Of course, at the time, these were simultaneously more personal and more negative than they should have been. Perhaps it's for the best that they were buried on FP and eventually taken down not long after. And all this gets me to thinking that perhaps I could have put them on LiveJournal, which is something I'm constantly forgetting that I have an account on, as well. Maybe one day I'll post excerpts there that I don't post here.

In the meantime, however, here the first two of maybe four or six randomly selected chapters my proto-blog for your perusal.
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VLOG: I Like Chili

Because I do.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #9: A Number Munchers Fan Fiction

Well, here's a little something I'd forgotten about quite some time ago. It's a Number Munchers fan fiction. You read that right: a Number Munchers fan fiction. This was a little thing I came up with one day after having reacquainted myself with the old Munchers games from my childhood. Even when I wrote this, it had been a good fifteen years since these games had been halfway relevant for me, so it was just a dumb idea to keep myself busy with one afternoon.

You'll notice that this is tagged with "Warp Power Studios and Theaters" and "A List of Evil" at the beginning. That was just a silly little thing I was doing at the time because it was pretty much the in thing to do with fanfiction at that point in time. It kinda got abandoned when being an adult became more important.

This particular piece never got published to my [FanFiction.Net page] for one reason or another. I think one good reason for that was that at the time, there was no appropriate section for it. Another is that it's a horribly stupid story. See for yourselves below the jump.
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An Almost Forgottet Item

I guess this means I should go through my CD-ROM collection when I clean my apartment later on today...

Thoughts On Reboot Movies

Because they've been kind of a theme in movie making in recent years.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #08: MiSTing of "Banned CD" spam

Back towards the end of my MiSTing career, I used to do a lot of email spam, in part because I would get a lot of it to work with, and saving it in a form that I could do so was much easier. I still get the same volume, but it's nowhere near what it used to be, in terms of funny content or ease of saving to work with.

This is one of the later so-called "live action" ones I did of a piece called "!Banned CD!Banned CD!" that I used simply because I had claimed it on the Web Site Number Nine Dibs List and felt I had to do something with it. It's a relatively bad piece, even for me. I think I threw it together in like one afternoon on a day off, and it shows. But hey, judging by the last few of these, maybe it'll be worth something here, just for what little entertainment value there may be here.

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TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #06: Breaking Into Branches (Branch A)

OK, I think I'm starting to get an idea here. It's a stupid idea, and more complex than it needs to be, but that might just mean it's just dumb enough to work.

From The Old Files: Issue #07: "Episode Guide" for fan-MiSTing "Day In The Life Of Pizza Cats"

Back towards the end of the fan-MiSTing era, it was sort of the in thing to do so-called episode guides for what we'd written. I only did this one that I can remember, but that's because I was terrible at it, at least in my own opinion, and it was essentially doubling the amount of work for an episode of one of these things.

See, the concept of these episode guides was to condense the whole what was pretty much a double-fan-fiction down to a few paragraphs, maybe a page at best, jokes and all, and provide further thoughts on it all. I only ever did this one because not only was it more work than I wanted to do for these things, as I said before, but I think I may also have done the base fan fiction's author a real disservice by trying to make the episode guide funny in and of itself. I don't recall any specific comments against it, but I have a feeling that there was a little discontent on her part as a result of this episode guide, which only added to my incentive to only do something like it one time.

With that in mind, let's have a look at one of the few things I actually do kind of regret having written: the episode guide for the MiSTed version of "A Day In The Life Of The Pizza Cats". It's better than the Sonic reviews I posed before, but also more regrettable, at least in my mind.

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TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #05: The Mindas Touch

Take One, anyway.

Video Test

What you're about to see is an experiment. Let me know how it works out. Thanks.

From The Old Files: Issue #06: MiSTing of "A Day In The Life Of The Pizza Cats", part 3

Here's the third and final part of this thing. I remember having a good time writing this originally, to the point that I even did an "episode guide" sort of thing for it. I'll be posting that after a while, too. But now that this is pretty much said and done with, I'm pretty much out of history that can't wait until the next thing that comes up, so without any further delay, here's part three.

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From The Old Floppies: Issue #05: MiSTing of "A Day In The Life Of The Pizza Cats", Part 2 of 3

Here's the second part of three I'm going to be doing this one in. Breaking it up into parts like this is how we used to do it for the Usenet Newsgroups, which were still way more active at the time. There's still at least one around, that I know of. It's called RATMM, or rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc. Used to self post there every now and again, but had to do it in parts because the old newsgroups were created at a time when most folks still had dialup Internet with slow download speeds and limited message size and space. That's why I also liked submitting to archive sites. That way, people could get whole things like this as one big piece if they wanted. Plus, as I've mentioned before, I liked WSN9's rating system. The good thing about the newsgroup is that it allowed for comments a little easier.

But anyway, here's part two of the MiSTing. This time, we pick up with the first host segment and go through the first part of the story. The end is the second host segment, which may date this a bit, with the implied commercial for Windows XP.

I hope you all enjoy this part and the next as much as you seemed to enjoy part one.

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From the Old Floppies: Issue #04: MiSTing of "A Day In The Life Of The Pizza Cats", Part 1 of 3

What we've got here is one of the Mystery Science Theater-style fan fictions I wrote back about eight or ten years ago now. By the time I did this one, by an author named Claudia Nimmich, I'd been doing my "self-insertion" series, where I used myself as the main character making fun of the movies, junk emails, and fan fiction typically used in this sort of thing instead of the TV show cast, for a while. The first few I did, including the one "for reelz" movie I ever did one of these for, were supposed to be "live action", where the actual living, breathing, human me who's typing this, albeit in an alternate reality, was actually sitting down in an actual movie theater purchased and renovated specifically for the purpose of making fun of these things and doing exactly that.

This "Day in the Life" story was the first one where I had switched the setting to what would become the standard model for what would become the rest of the series, with a few exceptions. As stated in the intro dialog, the switch happened magically one day when my character plugged in an arcade game in an attempt to get people to come visit the theater and watch things with him. Conveniently, it worked.

Regarding other style notes, at the top of the piece will be the headers used for classification on Web Site Number Nine, which was, for several years, the premier archive for fan MiSTings, until its closure in 2002 or 2003, I can't remember which off the top of my head. (Here's an article I wrote on the subject at That Guy With The Glasses in 2010.) At the end, there's a "credits sequence" mentioning the references I was trying to make and who I thought they were copyright to, but that's a post or two out.

This particular entry item is more than a little on the long side, being 34 pages long. Therefore, I'll be dividing it up and posting it in parts over the next few nights. So, here's tonight's installment: Part one of Day In The Life Of The Life Of The Pizza Cats", featuring the short, a junk email called "New Wave Services". This is just the short.

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Weekend Memories: Saturday Matinee Movie Series

I think this may be where I got my love of seeing movies in the theater.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #04: A New Artifact

This is about where I start running into trouble with this game, I think.

Spring 2012 Schedule

I guess it's time I got around to doing this.

From The Scrap Files

Just a little goofing around here, is all.

Random Word Number Six

And nothing more.

Life's Funny Like That: Memories of the Sinbad the Sailor Movies

Funny what comes to mind when I can't think of anything else to do at night.

Some Weirdness: March 26, 2012

Just a couple quick things here.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #03: Getting Fruity

There are some weird-ass fruits and vegetables in this game, but there's still a couple things we've gotta do before we get to see any of it.

VLOG: I've Been Thinkng: Getting Into Video

Here's something I've been meaning to do for awhile now.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #02: Hit The Road, Me!

Here's our first handful of relatively short quests.

New Schedule In The Works

From the looks of things, I may be able to set myself a new schedule for the stuff I do away from my day job.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #01: SPAAAACCCCEEEEE!!!

Perhaps I should have called this one “Things I Didn't Talk About In The Prolog”.

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #00: Choose Your Own Adventure

Here's a strange bird for you.

From The Old Floppies: Issue #3: Unfinished MiSTing of "Adventure of Jesse and Nick"

Here's something else I'm going to have to explain a little bit before I put in a jump and the actual item.

As quite a few readers may know, I'm a fan of a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000, or MST3K for short. I didn't really get into it until college, but I'd seen the show on a few occasions in high school. I didn't really "get it" until my local FOX affiliate picked up the syndicated "Mystery Science Theater Hour" version of the show, which ran slightly abridged episodes as two-parters instead of one, two-hour long block, with special bumpers at the start and end of each hour.

During my last year or so of full-time undergraduate study and the few years immediately after, I wrote quite a few fan fiction pieces based on the series. In general, these were referred to as "MiSTings" At first, I wrote using the characters from the last three seasons of the show, the Sci-Fi Channel era, as that was what I was most familiar with, having watched those first-run while in college. Later on, I started a self-insertion series along the lines MST3K. Eventually, I had to stop altogether as a result of the combination of lack of time, the fact that subjectively good material to work with had become exceedingly difficult to find, as of 2004, more or less, and, at about the same time, the most major archive for this genre of fanfiction went dark.

The general format of these fan fiction pieces has a lot of what is known as "script style" writing for the host segments, where the characters making fun of a particular item are interacting outside of the item itself. Within the material being joked about, the character jokes will be in script style and the source material, usually prose of some sort, will have ">" at the start of each new line. I'll say right now, this is one of the more complex types of writing I've ever done, and I'm sure it takes some time to get used to reading as well. What I'm about to present will certainly be more of a challenge to read, as I hadn't yet developed a more practical way of setting things up.

What you are about to see, in this case, is an unfinished version of one of the last "true" MiSTings I ever wrote before I transitioned from using the characters from the TV show to using myself and whatever seemed like funny guests for me to have on a particular piece. This is Mike Nelson and the season ten cast riffing on a story I originally wrote for a language arts class in ninth grade called "The Adventure of Jesse and Nick".

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From The Old Floppies: Issue #02: Review of Sonic SatAM Episode "Cry Of The Wolf"

Much of what I said when I posted the previous review in this series is true of this entry as well.

These two posts were part of three I wrote for the Sonic Tenth Anniversary thing I mentioned last time. I don't think I'm going to be able to post the third one of these I've got because everything I've got that I thought might have been able to open it with says it's either not compatible with the file type or that the file is corrupted. The worst part of that is that it's actually the first of the three in the miniseries and would have explained a few things that happened in the "Sonic Conversion" review and this one.

But even if I can't post all three of these, there's still plenty of other old stuff I'll try to get posted here as soon as I can, almost certainly interspersed with Text Play issues and other items.

In the meantime, grab up some goodies and get ready for more unintentional laughs for all the wrong reasons that I know I've only brought upon myself. We've got Retro Review Sign!
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From The Old Floppies: Issue #01: Review of Sonic SatAM Episode "Sonic Conversion"

There's gonna be a bit more before the jump here, folks, but there's a good reason for that. I kind of need to explain this before I get into the actual post.

As some of you might know, I'm something of a fan of SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, especially the cartoon series, though my opinions on each of the four does vary. About ten years ago, when the franchise was having its tenth anniversary, I was contacted by an old AOL contact and fellow Sonic fan, who had gotten a group together to build a fan site to celebrate the event. This fellow, Alex Weitzman, if I recall his name correctly, asked me if I wanted to contribute to said site in some way, as I had some fan fiction that could have gone up. There was also to be a section for fan reviews of various episodes of the Saturday Morning cartoon series. Since I had a few episodes recorded to VHS available, I volunteered to do reviews of those episodes as well.

What follows below the jump is the first of two such reviews I have ready access to, for the episode entitled "Sonic Conversion". Originally written in fall or winter of 2001, at a time when I was still an active part of the Mystery Science Theater fan community, the overall review series takes its title from my self-insertion fan series based on MST.

Be warned, though, at the time, I was only just beginning to really develop as a writer, so expect the spelling to be a little off in a few places and the attempts at humor to be markedly less than stellar overall.

With that, we've got review sign, folks! Get your snacks and beverages now and prepare to laugh yourselves silly for all the wrong reasons!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Friday, December 28, 2012

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Friday, December 14, 2012

Thursday, December 13, 2012

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