PixlBit

Bing Image Mad Libz: Jake Gyllenhaal and Fergie get "Fergilicious" with each other on the floor of The Sisitine Chapel ("fergilicious" being an old Biblical term for "passionate fornicating," loosely translated from ancient Hebrew and later replaced with the term "knowing" by the The Council of Nicea), which eventually leads to the birth of the next Pope. Rather than choose a traditional Pope name, like Francis or George, as is customary when coming into the papacy, she (yes, she) decides to call herself Pope Metal Sonic the First. When asked why she went with such a stupid name, she responds, "I played a lot of Sonic CD on my phone as a kid. Deal with it," giving photographers a duck face and then doing that thing where you stick your tongue out, and place it between two fingers to mimic cunnilingus, like all the hip kids do. 

Everyone is disappointed with the immature Pope, and really misses Pope Zelda the Third. Let's take a look at a game in the past that caused such a bad future for the papacy of 3015.

Sonic CD is like any other Sonic title, minus one simple gimmick: time travel. You can hit markers that read "Past" or "Future" and get Sonic going fast enough to travel to the past (top left) and destroy Robotnik's robot generators, thereby improving the future (bottom right), or simply stay in the present (top right), or go to a bad future in which results if you fail to destroy a level's robot generator (bottom left). As an added bonus, once you destroy the machine in the past, enemies disappear in that time period.

On the Android/iPhone remake,

Tails becomes a playable character once you've completed the game as Sonic

Of course, you can also go a more traditional route, and, after collecting 50 rings in a level, jump through the big ring at the end, destroying the UFOs in the special stage you enter to earn a Time Stone. Get seven Time Stones, and you will automatically get a good future for all stages you encounter after your accomplishment.

Still, if you fail to destroy the robot generators while you collect the Time Stones, your boss battlles will continue to be set in a bad future until all seven are collected.

Sonic CD is not the most challenging game in the Sonic franchise, in fact I think I've beaten it more than twenty times with Sonic and Tails, because I go to the app on my phone quite a bit when I'm bored. This doesn't mean that I'm growing a vagina, and becoming Pope when I'm a hundred and twenty five years old, but it does mean the game is optimal for gamers who want to relax and have an easy time just running through a simple platformer. Even the apparently infamous battle with Metal Sonic takes only basic memorization and reflexes to complete, and the final boss is a cakewalk compared to the hardest part of the game, which is simply getting to the final boss ... which, to be fair, can get frustrating, but it's still not a daunting challenge so much as an irritating one based on precision timing.

Metal Sonic is not impressed by bouncing and "ping" noises

While it is cool that there are so many different backgrounds and songs for each stage (both the appearance and soundtrack of the levels change when you travel through time), and I'm sure there are Easter Eggs hidden in the slightly different level designs of the different time zones, it never made the experience feel all that much more substantial to me, and it is a short game, with my average completion time being about thirty minutes, give or take. There's only seven stages, each with two zones, and one boss stage; most normal zones can be completed in well under three minutes, and boss zones in under one.

Sonic is somewhat femininely taken aback by your surprise his games go by quick

Still, it is a fun, relaxing distraction, if an insubtantial one, and one I don't regret paying my $5 for, especially given the extra features for the remade version available on smart phones, like being able to turn on both the Japanese and North American soundtracks, having Tails as an unlockable character, an Extras menu where you can listen to the music and sound effects outside of gameplay, and improved in-game graphics and FMV cutscenes. Speaking of which, while the Japanese soundtrack is my preference overall, you gotta love the North American intro, which constantly pops up on Pixlbit V4Viewtiful's game music blogs.

Joe Step is impressed by good ol' cheesy 90s video game music

And now, let's move from corny lyrics to ... arguably cornier lyrics, depending on your disposition, in today's

Waxing Lyrical Wednesday!

Now since I spoke of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" last blog, I feel more or less obligated to bring it to you today.

Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know

Now, the music in this skinny, presumably lonely, and incredibly naked Australian man's breakout hit is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty certain the lyrics are what got it to its number one position on the charts all those weeks. Why? Because it's a painstakingly detailed account of a break-up that can also be broadly applied to pretty much anyone in junior high or older that's lost contact with a loved one under non-ideal circumstances. 

It's pretty much the ultimate break-up song, with specific and detailed accounts of former happiness, and the cold, barren nature in which it all ended. I particularly like the line, "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness, like resignation to the end, always the end." Now, I'm lucky in that most of my romantic relationships have ended in friendships, but don't act like the first time you got dumped by someone you were on cloud nine with, you didn't at least once say "fuck it, might as well give up now." And if not, there's a certain truth to what he's saying with "I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger, and I feel so rough." Being hated is easier than being ignored oftentimes; at least if an ex gives you the stink eye every time you meet, there's a certain satisfaction in knowing it was significant to her/him too.

But is any of that why the song did so well? While it's eloquently delivered, it's hardly a new lyrical concept, after all. Partly yes, but what puts it over the edge is that it contains both perspectives: the dumped, that feels betrayed, and the dumper that feels annoyed at still having to deal with this whiny naked man that kept referring to himself as a chameleon and painting himself into the wall.

After all, when contact is lost, that's typical, but you might be wondering what the hell this guy did to have his ex "collect her records and then change her number." Seems a bit extreme. And that's when Kimbra comes in and verbally bitch slaps him for being such a gigantic pussy, recalling "all the times he screwed her over" and cutting him off because she was sick of "reading into everything he'd say" and reminding him that he wouldn't be hung up on her still if he was over it, as he said he was.

"I'm sad cause my baby left me" and "get over it, asshole" are pretty common lyrical themes, as is the break-up song in general, but when combined and given such pointed lyrics, the song is given a universal quality it wouldn't have with only its music. It's almost like the break-up song equivalent of horoscopes, and some day James Randi's disembodied Futurama head will play it for a class of college students who swear it describes their break-up to a tee, even though it was written years ago, about none of them.

Of course, while "Somebody That I Used to Know" has multiple verses with differing lyrics, sometimes choosing just that one phrase that works can be effective.

Rihanna/Calvin Harris - We Found Love

I am going to get sooooo much shit for this; or I would, if Pixlbit weren't such a tight-knit community, but I know you all, deep down, want to tell me what a jackass I look like putting this in a blog celebrating lyrics.

Hear me out. Do you remember a damn thing she's saying aside from yellow diamonds, something something, and that chorus line "we found love in a hopeless place?" No? Me neither. So again, why the hell would I put this on a blog about lyrics? Because with that line, I hear something transcendent in a way. Let's face it, the economy being where it is, coupled with a sense of disconnect and failure for a lot of people, has led to a need for human interaction among all the disappointment, giving "we found love in a hopeless place" a similar universal horoscope-esque appeal to ... well, at least me. Maybe the rest of you didn't find solace in finding a girlfriend when a hundred or so jobs rejected you post-college, and you found yourself back in your parent's house, with only a year of managerial experince and a Magna Cum Laude BA degree to show for your hard work, which kind of defeats my "universal" point, but it meant something to me dammit!

Anyway, it's not so much that the line is amazing on paper, it's that it changes the tone of the song completely. Hearing that music on its own, I hear two things, one is "phone commercial," the other is "Six Flags commercial." With the lyrics however, it's like I'm transported to a different world, one with heightened emotions and textures, colors. Good music for me is often a transcendent experience, which is why I keep recycling that word; it's just the perfect descriptor for an other-wordly sense of emotions, and once that line is added to this song, that's what I get out of it. Neither that line nor the music are great in their own right, but once again, we have combination of two things, in Gotye's case perspectives, in this case music and lyrics, providing a much better product and experience than what could have been had the combination not been made. 

And since I'm going with the themes of combinations, transcendence, and lyrical importance, allow me to repost a song from an earlier blog that combines what I think is a pretty good rock instrumental with lyrics that describe the transcendent experience music can provide me, and in doing so, becomes a transcendent experience all its own.

Three Days Grace- Break

Now this is a good rock song, at least in my opinion. The bass hooks me in, the drums are tight, the guitar comes in at just the right time to complement the vocals, which are melodic while being passionate and given a certain edge.It's simple, even the guitar solo isn't very complicated to a lot of what's out there, but it's damn effective.

It only gets better because of the lyrical theme. The words themselves are basically different ways of saying the same thing, but when that thing is "when life leaves a bag of flaming shit on your doorstep, know you still have an avenue or outlet that can transport your mind to a better place," I take that as the perfect metaphor for music in my case, especially heavy music.

He could just as easily be talking about drugs, given the vague lines about "when you can't stand the way this place is, take yourself to higher places," but to me, it's relevant to how in the worst times in my life, music has been my spiritual connector of sorts, taking me to higher planes of existence through the emotions I'm given while listening. Would it work well without the music? No. Is the music a huge reason I like it to begin with? Yes. But it would not stand out as much as it does if it did not describe so perfectly, albeit simply and somewhat vaguely, the reason I turn to Mother Music in times of trouble.

In the next entry, I'll try to find more specific lyrics to talk about, but I thought it was important, starting out, to show how even the simplest lines can add a great deal of emotional depth to a song.

And now, some random thoughts:

Gary the Gnome thinks it's a bit late to be posting a blog;

Gary can shut it, I got it done before midnight

- I had plans to go to the Grimaldi's Pizzeria after 5, but my friend had to cancel cause she was sick; oh well, had a big spaghetti dinner at home and watched Skyfall again cause my parents wanted to see it. They fell asleep, but I enjoyed it.

- Sorry this blog is so late, a lot of my time has been spent attending to Clinger, as he is constantly crying for something at all hours of the day. Luckily, he goes outside during the day, but I think he's in pain, and he won't accept my food and water offers. I don't think he's getting much to eat outdoors either, as his teeth are old, his front paws have no claws, and he looks skinny. Yesterday he bled on my comforter. Hopefully, we can try again to inject him with saline solution, so that he's not dehydrated, but we'll see how long we can hold him down for that. He's constantly crying either in pain or for attention, so I'm not sure how long he'll last. Today, I couldn't find him outside, and wondered where he went, almost hoping that he had gone off to go to sleep on his own, so that I wouldn't have to do it or be there to see it. I'm going to try everything I can, but with a fifteen year old cat, I'm not hopeful. Good news is we found an old picture of him jumping feet in the air after a ball.

- I need to catch up on my video subscriptions and reading Catching Fire, but more importantly, I need to find a second job if work doesn't pick up soon; problem is I've looked and not found much, even recently, but I'm getting very antsy from not working; I have my workouts and stuff around the house to do, but I'm not going to feel content until I have my own place and lots of work to do. Trying to make the best of it.

- Speaking of work, my mom painted the bathroom in the kitchen and it looks a lot cleaner now. I'm glad to see all that newspaper and stuff gone, finally. I offered to help, but the bathroom is a pretty tiny space, so mostly I just ran errands to the hardware store, and helped her unscrew things. Made me feel a bit useless, but that's not much to complain about.

- I recently updated my twitter account. I was embarassed by my old @genresrforposers handle, so I was glad to find out how simple it was to change to @joemikestep. If you want to know what I really look like, I updated my profile on here with that information.

- I might start a Google Blog about more serious things. Don't worry, I'm not leaving Pixlbit, I just want an outlet where I can talk about current events and stuff that's not really "fun" or relevant to gaming. I like having this blog as a place to just relax, and I don't want to disrupt that with some of my more serious and possibly controversial thoughts. I'll give the link out if I actually wind up doing it.

That's all for today, how are you guys doing?