PixlBit

Bing Image Mad Libz: Bored snowboarders from 1080 Snowboarding decide to grab some excitement by visiting 48-year-old boxer Bernard Hopkins at his secret base in Cancun, so that he may prepare them for the ultimate test: Florida shark riding. If a snowboarder succeeds in not being eaten, they will be dubbed The Karate ... Florida Shark Riding Kid ... Champion ... Person.

After reading Kathrine Theidy's Tour de 64 entry on Diddy Kong Racing on the front page, I decided to look at other N64 games she had reviewed prior to see if I recognized any. Sure enough, 1080 Snowboarding was the first thing she reviewed, being that she's reviewing the games of N64 in alphabetical order, and the title starts with a number, putting it before A on most alphabetical lists with numerical titles somewhere in them.

She said she only remembered renting it before she went on her "purchase every North American N64 release" spree, and returned it after finding the controls stiff and hard to handle, and not finding the game all that interesting.

Having owned the game, and seen the praise heaped on this game by others, plus enjoying it a bit more than she did, at least for multiplayer and nostalgia ... I concur. Yeah, I know exactly what she means.

I think the problem is, while it was one of the first N64 games I owned for some odd reason, I too alaways found it a bit dull and hard to control, probably because it's meant to be a more realistic presentation of snowboarding, at least for its time period.

While I did like the character and board designs, and I didn't really mind the gameplay overall, I did fall flat on my ass every time I tried to perform the simplest task outside of just turning my board; even that didn't always go so well. Judging by this video, I think at least one Youtuber shares my pain.

However, I should probably play it again to see if maybe now that I'm older I'll get a better handle on it. My hopes aren't high, but hey, we'll see. Do you guys prefer arcade or simulation when it comes to sports? Does it depend on the sport? Have you ever played this game? Lemme know what you think.

Sorry I didn't have much to say today, but I wanted to talk about something I remembered, but couldn't say much in-depth about anyway, given the last minute nature of this blog. It was nice outside, so I did a lot of walking and errand running. There was literally not a cloud in the sky, a warm ray of sunshine, and a surprisingly chilly breeze, so I couldn't pass it up. I even witnessed a car accident! Luckily, no one was hurt, but damn, drivers are stupid these days. I'm glad the car wasn't on my part of the sidewalk when it got smacked onto it, I'll say that much.

Anyway, here's your Mixmaster Monday!

I HATE seeing this thing on the way to work every time; trust me, it's way more crowded in the morning

First, if any of you are metal fans, be sure to check out fellow Pixlbit homelessrook's Metal Mondays.

Second, as promised, today's entries are a bit of a mix; I literally just took the first three songs I remembered liking off Song Pop when I played it today and put them here. Unlike what I promised, I have a sore throat, and Soundcloud, Flash Player, and Mozilla Firefox have decided to be uncooperative as of late, so I'm not going to record my voice to introduce these today. Hopefully tomorrow. By the way, does anyone know how to get Firefox to stop asking you to install the new Adobe Flash, so that it also stops requiring me to enable my "out-of-date" plug-in every time I want to use it. I knew how to do it in Chrome, but never experienced this in Firefox until now. And if you're wondering why I don't just install the newest Flash like it asks: it never works on my D620 laptop here; always get no video, just sound, and have to uninstall, then reinstall the older version anyway. Any help is appreciated.

Without further ado,

Crazy Town - Butterfly

This sexy rap song was very popular when I was in junior high, or maybe even before. The guitar riff being sampled is from Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Pretty Little Ditty," it's from the end of that instrumental song off their 1980s Mother's Milk album, which I believe is the one just prior to when Rick Rubin stepped in as producer and exploded their popularity with Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic in the early 90s.

Back to the Crazy Town song, I always assumed it might have been Fred Durst singing the chorus, and often heard how the song was trash and was ruining the youth. Well, it never involved Durst, and I still find it catchy, but the "runing the youth" part I think might be fair game, given the subject matter and the music video. Whatever, I enjoy my simplified, sexualized, and douchebag-with-his-shirt-off popular late 90s/early 2000s music every now and again. Gotta love that sample.

Bill Withers - Lean On Me

Now that these crazy, shirtless whiteboys have done their Woodstock '99 dance and trashed everything, we gotta class the joint up a bit. And personally, seeing all this fiery wreckage left by hormonal concert-going teens leaves me needing someone to lean on, for I am not strong.

I've always heard the song, as I'm sure many had, but not until I listened to every last one of The Rolling Stone Magazine's Top 500 Songs I could find on Youtube while I was still in college (mostly it was the Prince stuff I couldn't find) did I learn the song was about missing the community Withers felt he had growing up in a coal mining town in Virginia, and felt he had lost upon moving to a decrepit apartment in Los Angeles. It has depressing roots, but damn is it soothing.

Alicia Keys - Fallin'

My older brother was quite a bit more of a fan of hers than I was, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy her stuff quite a bit as well.

She might have simple lyrics, but I always enjoyed her instrumental work and voice. So powerful. Usually I don't like modern R&B, mostly cause of those cheesy ass chimes at the beginning of those songs, and their corny lyrics. Keys is an exception though, as it's usually the piano and that amazing voice I hear in her work. Hell, I'm a Boston Red Sox fan, and even I like the song "Empire State of Mind." What song called "Girl on Fire?" What do you mean it's overly simplistic, boring, and has a WTF verse from Nicki Minaj? I will not hear of this garbage! Instead, I will drown you out with her fantastic debut single!

Think this blog is a bit late? Well, I think my computer's a lttle slow, and daylight savings taking an hour of sleep from me is a lot of BS, so there ya go. I'ma go watch Conan now.