Video Of The Moment: Kid + Giant Dodge Ball...

Funny - Funny Videos

...equals comedic gold. Found this today while looking through Twitter. I don't have anything to add to this awesomeness. It IS Awesome Sauce.

Well, expect a new post tomorrow that isn't a VOTM. 4 reals. :)

Via KingLaserface's Twitter feed (NSFW background; go read KSK for refrences)

Pure Randomness #001

One week ago today, I decided to create this blog. Two days from now, it will have been one week since my first post. And, come Thurday, will be my one-week anniversary on Twitter. If you came from whatever means, please stick around, and also comment on this blog. I promise more stuff coming out, including a talk about Seth and Street Fighter IV, a game that inspired me to launch the wonder that is Blocked Party Rock, and on February 17th in general. Plus, more Video Of The Moments to keep your brain occupied. Until then, meet a new regual feature, and a way to end the weekend: Pure Randomness. They're like VOTMs, but, instead of being just awesome, they are made with a mixture of Awesome Sauce and Stupid.

See that pic above? Yeah, it's a cover to the latest Cosmo. But, look at the big white text, saying "HIS BIGGEST SEX SECRETS." Ladies, if you're reading this blog, you don't need Cosmo to tell you what our biggest sex secrets are. Ernest Borgnine kinda revealed it for us on Fox and Friends last year (rated WEB-14):

Yeah, thank you Earnest. Not only did you reveal one of our darkest secrets, you also gave away one of the biggest health secrets of all time. Also, the cheapest since it doesn't involve getting a book by Kevin Trudeau.

Also, you can access and spread the love of this blog by copying the following link. You'll be glad you did:
http://tinyurl.com/BPR-Blog

Thank You For Your Support Of Blocked Party Rock.

Why Circuit City Failed

As many of you have heard/read, electronics retailer Circuit City, after trying to get new investors/suitors like Blockbuster and contemplating bankruptcy protection, announced last month to shut all of its stores and began to liquidate and sell all remaining items and fixtures, a process that supposed to end on March 31. It is sad and not awesome to see a retailer collapse, especially one that your parents frequently shopped and got their television sets and Playstation 3s, and it's a little bit cruel to state that you took advantage of liquidation prices to pick up Rock Band 2 and a wired X-Plorer guitar controller for underneath 60 bones, like I did a couple of weeks ago, when it's the same retailer that got you three of your favorite games of all time - Guilty Gear X2 and Amplitude on the PS2 and the Gamecube version of Skies of Arcadia - in one trip many moons ago. However, a trip yesterday to my local Circuit City allowed me to examine why Circuit City failed. The reason?

THEIR PRE-LIQUIDATION PRICES WERE TOO HIGH!

Seriously. They had way higher prices for most of their products when compared to the direct competition like Best Buy (who was actually across the street in Savannah), especially for computers and computer accessories. Example: Yesterday's trip was the result of me wanting a new external hard drive. All they have (beyond the portables) was a 500 GB Western Digital My Book Essential; they had plenty of those on stock. The liquidation price was 30 percent off the displayed price. The displayed price? About $140. [/shock] Yeah, meaning the liquidation price was about $100. A fellow shopper near me, also looking for computer parts, said that he wasn't going to pay those prices and thought about heading towards Best Buy. So, shortly after the little conversation, I went to Best Buy. Guess what? The same 500 GB My Book was available, at $99.99, non-liquidated. You know what happened next? I ended up buying a different hard drive - a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Desk - which only cost me $79.99. $79.99. And, I ended up using the $20 difference to pick up the Guns N Roses Chinese Democracy album. Talk about adding insult to injury. And, that's just one story! I bought my laptop in 2006 at Best Buy because they did away with mail-in-rebates and factored in the rebates into the actual price you paid up front, a technique I don't even know if Circuit City adopted.

Of course, it's not always about prices, because it it was, we would be ruled by Walmart. When I was at work later that night explaining my trip, a fellow co-worker expressed two seperate instances where Circuit City's customer service was crappy to him. In one instance, the store charged him more for a season set of South Park, even though it was in a bin with a bunch of other South Park seasons on sale for 20 bones. In another instance, he asked a clerk in the gaming department if Guitar Hero 3's Les Paul guitar (PS3 Version) would work with other guitar games on the system; the clerk was clueless (although in this situation, I would have consulted Joystiq's Instrument Compatibility Matrix for help, in which it says it works with all of them). Prices sometimes mean nothing if good customer service is factored in. The last remaining factor, the only place in town that carries said product, can be rendered pointless with online shopping unless you lack the means (again, becomming more pointless with gift cards being able to do online shopping).

So, in hindsight, Circuit City was probably destined to fail. But, I didn't get bad customer service from them when I was there, and if they had the crap I want (like anime) and weren't gouging me for them, I would have shopped there more. Alas, by March 31, Circuit City will join the ranks of Goody's, Montgomery Ward, and Toonami in becomming nothing more than a distant memory. I hope those that are affected (like employees) hopefully land on their feet and get new jobs as quickly as possible, despite how crappy this economy is. And, I hope that the executives weren't Greedy McMoneybags in causing its destruction, like those who sold Midway Games for $100,000 plus the debt.

VOTM: Wall Street Fighter 4

I've been playing Street Fighter IV since I got it on Tuesday. Beyond the ultra-cheap final boss, Seth (expect a much detailed post from me in the coming days about him), the sometimes laggy online mode, the pension of every player online to pick Ken instead of, you know, ANY OTHER CHARACTER (Hell, I would like to see someone pick Ryu when they face me online), and the overall crappiness of the Xbox 360's D-Pad, it's an awesome game. It's truly not like an updated version of SF II or Alpha clone some have been calling it thanks to the combo mechanic and the Super/Ultra Combo systems. And, I'm in so much of a mood, check out the above video from CB FRESH. Maybe if we see Wall Street executives duke it out with thier fists and go all MMA on themselves via Pay-Per-View, the recession would be solved. Or, make us forget a little bit that these are some of the same douchebags that got us into this mess in the first place. Either way, someone's going to get their ass handed to them. Yay!

Thank you, ShadowGUN from the Toon Zone forums!
BONUS LINK: F*CK YOU, SETH! (BahamutZero's blog on Destructoid)

Video Of The Moment: Mad World meets "Mad World"

Mad World is this year's biggest risk-taker. It's graphics are in black-and-white (save for red blood and the comic pop-out words), it's uber-violent, and oh, yeah, it's on the Wii. But, it looks uber-fun and may be the first Wii game I've bought and play since Smash Brothers Brawl last year, along with another M-rated title that came out this year, The House of the Dead Overkill. If you want to see my point, check out the trailers for it, or watch the video above. The good fine people over at Games Radar played the first three levels of it and have set the footage to "Mad World," the song loved by Donnie Darko and Gears Of War fans (right next to the Cole Train song at the end of Gears 1). Watch, enjoy, and be shocked. :)

BONUS STUFF

-Evolution of Death in Video Games (Games Radar) [extra bonuses: things influencing games and game logo evolution]
-Capcom's 10 Commandments (MTV Multiplayer)
-Evangelion 2.0 Japanese release date (ANN) [extra bonus: El Cazador]
-HD 101: Why there are black bars on HDTVs (Engadget HD)

"...Actually, It IS You."

Dear Criterion Games,

I like you guys. I like your games. More specifically, I like your Burnout franchise. I enjoy arcade racers more than sims, and my favorite games from the N64 era were the San Francisco RUSH franchise - which does include the N64-exclusive RUSH 2: Extreme Racing USA, one of my most-played games from the era. I enjoyed the thrill of driving cars really, really fast and seeing them wreck spectacularly, and I was glad to found a potential successor last console generation when I played the original Burnout on the Gamecube. I had fun when you unleashed Burnout 2 on the PS2, but it wasn't until y'all hooked up with EA and gave the world Burnout 3: Takedown. I played that game to death. Being able to take out your opponents with aggressive driving finally made Burnout the RUSH successor I wanted to play. I did get Burnout Revenge, but it wasn't my favorite of the franchise.

That is until you released Burnout Paradise on the next-gen systems. I got a taste of the demo on the PS3 last year, and thought it was the bomb. In that little taste, you gave me a fluid online system and an arcade racer meshing with an open world that makes me happy. And, when I got my 360 later that year, the trip to Paradise City was one of the first games I've ever got. And, it was filled to the brim with Awesome Sauce. The open world was fully realized. The online play mechanics integrated seamlessly into the gameplay. It was literally Burnout meets GTA in the sense that you can race around Paradise City and not even bother with the main quest until you were ready. It was fun, and it also got my brother into the franchise.

And, then, you took the base game and made it better through downloadable content. You did DLC better than anyone last year by offering game-changing content. Cagney was cool, but the Bikes Pack was truly the best and shows why some people (including myself) think you are the only developer worthy enough to tackle a revival/remake of Road Rash, one of EA's classic franchises (which include Wing Commander and the Strike series). And, all of it was free. You added more Awesome Sauce to the game without corrupting it. And, you are still supporting the game, adding in an offline multiplayer mode, 4 kick-ass tributes to pop culture's iconic cars (like the Ecto-1, the General Lee, KITT, and the flying DeLorean), and more coming down the pipline as paid DLC. And, all of it is good and cool. But, this is where we part, Criterion.

Look at the pic above. In order to access the Legendary Cars pack (the pop culture tributes), I have to download the latest update to Burnout Paradise. And, guess what? That update takes up over 870 MB of hard drive space; it's even more annoying that the download to activate the Legendary Cars is a little over 100 KB. And, you did the same thing with the Party Pack - large-ass free update, tiny activation pack. Now, this is fine and dandy, if I had a large enough hard drive. But, instead, I got a 20 GB, purchased when they first went down in price (better known as a "liquidation"). And, I'm not going to delete more space off of my hard drive to support this or any more of your updates. So, it pains me to say/type this, but we have to part ways, Criterion. I can't support your game anymore. My hard drive cannot handle any more updates until I upgrade to the 120 GB, which won't be for a while; other purchases like DVDs, food, graphic novels, and a backup external hard drive for my computer are more important at this moment. So, until then, or when you make another game, we part ways. Just remember: it's not you, it's me...

...Actually, it IS you. STOP RELEASING DLC THAT IS TOO HUGE! Those of us on both the 360 and the PS3 with small hard drives already near the brink cannot hold these updates without deleting stuff we want. Plus, the 1.6 update is gone from the XBLM servers! Do we still need it? I Need Answers!

Signed,
-Jonathan, aka Vyse the tetrisdork (XBL: tetrisdork)

Burnout Paradise's listing on the Xbox Live Marketplace (Xbox.com)
Criterion Games home page
Criterion on Twitter (looks like I know where to ask...)

"Welcome To The Future"

Welcome to the future, Welcome to the future..
Get into the new speed, Get into the enemy...
Mass communication (genemanipulation)
So what's the occupation? (what's your dedication?)
Welcome to the future, Straight into the future

-Lyrics to "Bigtime" by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

Well, welcome to the future. My future. The Internet's future. A future built at first by blog posts. A future where, at the beginning, will be solely my thoughts, opinions, reviews, stories, and other writings. And, eventually, I will also include videos I created myself. Original productions of mass insanity. But that's in the distant future; how distant, I don't know. But, I do know is that I will deliver every post with an image and/or a video. THAT IS A FACT!

For the foreseeable future, this site is a work-in-progress. I will add more features as time goes on. I will also learn to alter the look so that the site will look purty and more to my style. I am working on it, but until then, this will do.

In the meantime, welcome to my place on the net. A place where games, music, comics, anime, movies, television, books, and sports collide into a smorgesboard of crazy and filled to the brim with Awesome Sauce. Because, it is my goal to build a site made with Awesome Sauce. And, trust me when I say, this is going to be awesome.

Welcome to the future. Enjoy the ride.

Welcome to Blocked Party Rock.

P.S. I love "Bigtime" by The Sondtrack of Our Lives. It fits the tone. :)

Lyrics taken from Dapslyrics.com