Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #99 is more a humorous re-imagining of events than an actual occurrence -- I did receive two calls (last night and tonight) from the same person looking for Bruce, but the caller was fairly polite and I didn't do the Batman thing. Still, these wrong numbers to my cell are getting ridiculous. In the past couple of weeks I've gotten not only the aforementioned calls, but also several calls from folks speaking in Spanish and even one call from a local Michaels store (apparently another local Michaels has the same number, but a different area code)! If I really were Batman and this were the '60s, Commissioner Gordon and Gotham City would be fucked because I would totally unplug the Batphone. The Bat-Signal is much better because it makes no noise.

And, as noted, we also have a short story for you -- an allegorical tale entitled "Mold Country". Like most of the stories on the site, it's an older piece that I was unable to get published in a paying rag, but I still think that it's a worthwhile (if rather brief) read. Enjoy!

In other news, this weekend saw the airing of the absolute worst Doctor Who episode of all time. It was truly abysmal.

Someone should have burned that script.

But first, Crayon Poetry Corner #14! I actually wrote this a really long time ago and completely forgot about it -- I think I was planning to accompany it with a voice recording. Anyway, I was about to post another poem when I stumbled upon it instead, so I figured I'd get this thing up. Seeing as how the poem was partly inspired by Frogger, the image to the right of the poem is taken from the SNES version. Yep.

That said, the star of today's update is this in-depth review of the MS-DOS versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I and II. Much like the PC port of Street Fighter II that we reviewed a year ago, these computer incarnations manage to be inexplicably different from the original versions in marked ways. I'm admittedly a bit fond of some of the graphical modifications to the first game (the Turtles look interesting and Shredder looks great, but I don't like what they did to April at all), but the changes to the gameplay of both titles are pretty hard to overlook. You'll read more about it in the actual article, but I will continue to argue that TMNT I is impossible to beat without cheating until someone out there proves me wrong. So get to it!

So in case you're up for taking the challenge or simply giving these games a try, here is a helpful tutorial on Abandonia for configuring DOSBox and getting games up and running. I personally recommend using a frontend like D-Fend to simplify the process, though.

That said, in case you've got absolutely no desire to play these broken games, here are some YouTube recordings that I made of the final battles and ending sequences. I've been going crazy with YT as of late.

Aaaand while we're at it, here are a few more videos that I posted to YouTube of the movie game. Two are boss battles with the Generals (one each); the other is an extended battle with the Shredder and his clones, which is what happens if you don't target the genuine article. It's too bad the Turtles don't gain EXP or coins for every defeated enemy -- that battle would be solid gold for leveling up and making money.

All for now, then. Seeya next time, minna-san!

Sorry about the lack of updates as of late (this is getting to be a pretty common way of beginning these entries, isn't it?), but we've finally got something new for you: The Lost Lunches: Volume One! As noted in the article, the lack of official Random Lunch articles on the site doesn't mean that I haven't been making and photographing them -- so today's piece takes us back to 2004 for a look at five (well, four, but one is a two-in-one) of the culinary experiments that got "lost" as I got distracted and worked on other things for Scary-Crayon. But now -- at long last -- these forgotten dishes have been recovered for your viewing pleasure!

After looking at some of these, though, you may wish they'd stayed lost.