Video Of The Moment: Insane Stand-off

My parents watch Fox News. A lot. It's on right now. It's at a volume where I can faintly hear it in my room. It's annoying. However, it does present itself with advantages, like this standoff from last night in Los Angeles. I was walking to my room when Fox News showed the video, and I laughed my ass off. I kinda feel sorry for him, but then I read the article where the embedded video came from, and I now kinda don't. Watch and enjoy.

Pure Randomness #13 - Muscle March

This is bizarre. And maybe gay. And on drugs. It's essentially Cho Aniki plus Hole In The Wall in terms of gameplay and style as bunch of muscle-bound people and a polar bear chase down people who stolen their protein supplement. Nothing but high-quality weird from the people who brought you a crotch-plate flamboyant king of space and whatever the hell Noby Noby Boy is.

Happy Day Of Drink! (aka St. Patrick's Day)

I live in Savannah, GA. And tomorrow (or today, since I was typing this late last night) is going to be one of the biggest days of the year for the city. Why? Because tomorrow's St. Patrick's Day, a holiday which lost all original meaning whatsoever and became nothing more than a holiday for drunkenness. Our city's parade is one of the largest in the country, either 2nd or 3rd biggest (always behind New York's). We dye a fountain green. And, the city will have to deal with drunks, crazed women kissing marching cadets from the local all-boys military school, and more drunks. Crap, the city even tried to contain the purchase of liquor in downtown Savannah (where the parade is held) into one district and have it fenced off, creating a drunk display for a local zoo.

I really have no clue if they're doing it again this year (I believe not) because I don't care about the parade. I've been to it before as a kid, and really have no interest to fight the crowds since I became older. In fact, while the parade happens, I'll be at work bagging groceries; yes, that's my job but it's not my career. But, for the few of you who read this blog (hey, bro!) and to the rest of the Interwebz, I wish all of you a happy and safe St. Patrick's Day. Or, ever since I saw the Family Guy episode "Peter's Two Dads," a happy and safe Day of Drink!

(I couldn't find a clip of FG where Peter and his biological dad start playing "The Game Of Drink," so you get the end of the episode where they engage in a musical number. Still suits the holiday, though. Either way, go watch "Peter's Two Dads" to commemorate the holiday. Even if it means you buying the episode off of Xbox Live or iTunes, or even getting the DVD, do it NOW!)

Pure Randomness #002

Sorry about me not posting in a while. Life happens. Like work. And laziness. Until the next post, enjoy the creepiness that is the new Gatorade Tiger labeling.

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)