Youtube Channels - MarbleHornets

I think approaching thunderstorms are an appropriate enough setting to be blogging about this. MarbleHornets is a Youtube channel in which a friend of Alex Kralie logs interesting or strange video tapes supposedly left behind after he abandoned an independent film project, due do the "unworkable conditions" on his set. There are over 30 entries now, and I haven't even gotten to watching them all myself. I've not much else to say about this.

Just don't plan on sleeping anytime soon.

Foods - Jones Soda

Quick, what do a wet park bench, a dog poking its head out the window, and a closed down museum exhibit covered in caution tape have in common? Probably nothing, except for the fact that they could all be things featured on the front of a bottle of Jones Soda. Want that picture of you in a bunny suit in your backyard on a bottle of soda? Jones is the guy to ask. The photo you accidentally took while the camera was in your satchel and features your friend looking like some blurry deity? They'll definitely look into it. Your website?

Check.

Jones Soda comes in a multitude of flavors. Seriously, I couldn't tell you how many flavors there are and have been. But I can tell you this: They are freaking delicious. If Jones Soda wasn't the best soda ever, I wouldn't be here blogging about it. You see, Jones Soda is like wrestling a bear in an attempt to save the young woman it was originally targeting. Despite what you may think, that you'd have no chance, with added context, you would see that the bear was not only very old, but also very sick because he had escaped from his climate controlled area in the zoo a week and a half earlier and was dying of starvation; not to mention you are also a professional wrestler and are wearing protective gear. Here's a Jones Soda.

Music - [blomljud] (Moon Safari, 2008)

Yeesh, what is it with me and bands from Scandinavia? Here we have [blomljud], the debut album of the Swedish progressive band Moon Safari. "Blomljud" is Swedish for "Sound of flowers." Which pretty much sums up the album entirely.

"..."

Okay, not quite exactly, but the best way to describe the sound would be happy and spring influenced. Like, vomiting rainbows kind of happy. Like, "Oh dear Christ I just dislocated my jaw from smiling too hard" sort of happy. It's relentless. But oh soo good. Be warned, this is a progressive rock album. Meaning, really meaty, so make sure you don't plan to listen to anything else for a whole week after getting into this. Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention, it's 104 minutes long. 

This one's kinda hard to come by. You can get an audio CD off of amazon... for 40 bucks. You can also purchase the MP3 download, which goes for about 8 bucks. Unless you have some kind of alternative method.

Recommended tracks:

- Constant Bloom

- Ghost of Flower's Past

- Yasgur's Farm

Video Games - Tyrian (PC, 1995, 2007)

Tyrian is a 2D space shooter by Eclipse Productions that was released in 1995 for the PC. It was released with 3 episodes, and a 4th added later on. Unlike 2D shooters of the time (Scratch that... of any time.), this one featured far more role-playing elements, for example, being able to purchase upgrades for your ship and power them up using the points you earned in game. You can attain better shields, chassis, a multitude of weapons, for the front, rear, and sides, and a bunch of other gadgets to add to your arsenal. The shop stock changes after every stage, and as you progress, they get more and more powerful. Another thing far different about this one is how much stamina your ship has. Rather than dying in one hit, or even just a few hits, your ship can take quite a lot of damage. And when your shields give, you still have armor to protect you. And if all that isn't enough, if your armor gets dangerously low, a supply ship will come to your aid and drop off a repair kit... Provided you can grab it before you get killed. It sounds easy, but the developers did their best to compensate for that, by adding a crapload of enemies that also have quite a lot of stamina.

But what is by far the most defining factor of this game is the weapon system. Any weapon can be upgraded up to 10 times. At first, you'll start off with your little pea shooter, and before you know it, the only thing on the screen is bullets. Think of it as an upside down bullet hell shooter.

UGH, why is there this lame backdrop in the way of my bullets?

Despite the fact that you can power up your ship to oblivion, the game is actually very challenging, and offers harder difficulty settings. Although very story-driven, you can get through the entire game without hardly reading a line of text. If you want to actually get into the story, however, you'll have to collect data cubes dropped off by some enemies during the missions. Reading them is completely optional, so if you only care about actually playing the game, you won't have to bother. Story aside, the game also contains many secrets to be found, including secret levels, weapons, and free upgrades. The game is available for free as "OpenTyrian," an open-source version of the game re-released in 2007. You can get it for the PC, but it has also been converted to work with many other things, such as a modded Wii, PSP, Zune HD, Android, Gizmondo, Dingoo, and almost anything with buttons and a screen.

Almost.

You can download the game for PC here:

http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/

Music - Hi-Fi High Lights Down Low (Lodger, 2004)

Genres of music work in funny ways. You can slap a prefix onto a well known term, and suddenly it becomes something completely different. Enter Lodger, an independent Finnish post-punk band. And by post-punk, I mean lyrics that are still crude and disheveled, but with an added touch of at-least-we-have-sophistication-enough-to-use-more-than-just-powerchords-and-badly-written-anthems-you-pathetic-excuses-for-musicians. To put it simply, they are more experimental, so their sound is a lot more varied than your typical punk band (Although, at this point, "punk" is only present in the lyrics, as they have abandoned any hope of being labeled as anything after the 7th track). If I had to put it into a word... Chill. Very laid back stuff thats good to just sit back and let the cadence take you for a ride. 

Unless you're easily offended.

They never really reached popularity outside of Finland, however, they made flash music videos as well, which pulled in a few more people from around the world (Although I happened to stumble upon this band thanks to... well... StumbleUpon.). They were originally on their website, however it got shut down recently. Thankfully, most of them are available on Youtube, in glorious 240p:

As if the lyrics weren't vulgar enough...

If you're interested, there are also two more albums by this artist: How Vulgar (2007) and Honeymoon is Over (2008). If you're looking to buy it, you can get it relatively cheap off of amazon, in both mp3 and audio CD.

Mp3 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001LIQ8LA/ref=mu_dm_alb_dp

CD - http://www.amazon.com/Hi-Fi-High-Lights-Down-Low/dp/B000N3STKM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305822240&sr=8-1

Of course, there are other means of getting ahold of this album, but it's a closely guarded secret.

You'll have to get through these salty sea dogs first.

Recommended tracks:

I Love Death

Short Man on TV

When I Was Six

Movie - The Green Mile (1999)

Stephen King's work has left quite a mark on the film industry; I'm sure you have all seen at least one film based off of one of his books. Although a popular author, he isn't particularly widely accepted as a good author among critics. But we're not here to discuss his works, we're here to talk about the many movie adaptations that have been made. These films and other adaptations (Most notably the TV miniseries) span a wide array of popularity, from some of the greatest movies of all time, like The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Shining (1980), to the cult classics like IT (1990) and The Stand (2000), and even the occasional stinker.

Ooga Booga! Where da white women at?

The Green Mile is one of those films that finds itself overshadowed by its older brothers, and so it isn't quite as popular as it should have been. The movie stars Tom Hanks as a prison guard on death row named Paul Edgecomb, when a very large and seemingly dim-witted black man, named John Coffey (Coffey, like the drink, only not spelled the same.), awaits execution after being accused of child murder and rape. However, as the movie progresses, Paul finds a childlike innocence in this convict, and what follows is the revelation of a mysterious power that he holds. Paul realizes that there may be more to his conviction than what we previously thought...
Tom Hanks does a great performance as always, but Micheal Duncan's (John Coffey) was absolutely outstanding - his performance alone is almost what made the movie.
This is one of my favorite films to date, and an absolutely must-watch for any Stephen King fans out there. If you haven't seen it yet, go do yourself a favor...

Blog Introduction

Hey, all!

I made this blog as a more productive way of keeping a list of stuff I would recommend to someone, provided it's actually something good and obscure enough so most of you are unlikely to have heard of it (I may post about more popular things if they were good enough, or if it received a bad reputation). Whether it be movies, music, video games, websites, foods, whatever. I'll be updating this blog every day with something new, and I promise only to blog about my absolute favorites, not just things I "kinda liked but other people kept raving about."

I've been working on this list for quite a while, so I thought I would actually do something (more or less) productive with it and make a blog, explaining what I love about all of these things. It's a pretty good length, and stuff is always being added to it (Plus, there may be some spinoff posts, like top 10s, recaps, anti-recommendations, and so on), so this blog should be regularly updated for quite a while.

Anyways, I appreciate your comments! Sorry, I got nothing for today. This is all you get. >:I

Also puppies.

D'aww

Peace out.