Hello there, children! Still not ready with the Street Fightery goodness for you, but here’s an uncharacteristic something to hold you over in the meantime: a short story entitled “Hazel Wheatkettle’s Dying Wish”. It’s not part of the current project that’s been demanding my attention as of late, but they’re both fiction pieces and this was just kinda sitting there so I figured I’d post it. The piece is kind of serious and pretty sad (an old lady dies, hence the title), so don’t read it if you’re feeling down or if your pet mousey just got eaten by a rogue snake or something. Same goes if you’re in the mood for graphical splendor, as I didn’t even bother to include unrelated photographs with this one. It’s a totally textual experience.

On a lighter note, who’s been watching “Saved by the Bell” on Cartoon Network? I’ve always gotten a kick out of the show, but the caption and the wacky slowed down advertisements make it even funnier for some reason. Since then, Elizabeth Berkeley has gone on to star in the hilariously awful Showgirls and several not so hilarious but still quite awful direct-to-video films. Mario Lopez became one of the neutered men in the terrible “male” answer to “The View”. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen got all chunky with chipmunk cheeks and then locked herself in a closet after starring on “90210” during its shark-jumping years. Dustin Diamond beat up an old man on national television and then fell off the face of the earth. Aside from that short-lived WB series with Zack, I don’t even remotely know what happened to everyone else.

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve also been watching “Kingdom Hospital” on SciFi. Not religiously or anything — this show is fucking terrible — but it airs on Tuesday nights during a time when I’m not particularly doing anything so I’ve tuned in. And I don’t get it. It’s this incredibly long miniseries during which almost absolutely nothing happens, making you wonder why the hell they made it so long to begin with (and it’s worth noting that the original series on which it is based, “Riget”, is much, much shorter). But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, given that Stephen King handled its adaptation for American audiences. I like the guy, but he did write Sleepwalkers. UGH. I’ve been looking forward to the Silent Hill film, but knowing that the actress who played the horrible cat mother is in the movie makes me have second thoughts about it.

But like I was saying, the amount of pointless shit in “Kingdom Hospital” is exasperating. One of last night’s episodes (it airs in four hour blocks of four hour-long episodes each) kept cutting to a headless corpse dancing around in the shower while its head sat under a blow dryer. What? One such scene might’ve been mildly amusing (though still pointless and pretty stupid), but this was just ridiculous. There’s also this talking anteater thing that sometimes opens its mouth really wide to reveal freaky sharp teeth, which aside from my general boredom is about the only reason I keep watching because I want to know just what the hell it is. Well, that and the fact that one of the doctors looks a lot like Bud Bundy.

All for now. Ja!

Apologies for the lack of updates last week — despite licking battery acid, I am alive and well. Well, alive, anyway. I’ve been working on some rather time-consuming projects as of late, but Scary-Crayon is still a go! As evidenced by today’s updates. In addition to A Crayon Haiku #50, we’ve got another foray into horrific holiday greetings with The 4+1 SCARIEST 39¢ Easter Cards. Pickings seemed slim at first, but once I got into it I found that these cards far surpass the subjects of our prior Halloween and Christmas outings in the fear factor department. But Easter and its Jewish coincident are by far the most fucked up holidays we’ve examined thus far, so I guess that’s to be expected.

In other news, here are a few videos that’ll be accompanying our next video game review. Natch, they’ll be included along with the article (along with other vids and even downloads of the full games themselves, which are incidentally about as big as these videos), but blog readers get the special sneak preview. Enjoy…

E. Honda vs. M. Bison (859 KB)
Zangief vs. Chun-Li (1.14 MB)
Ryu vs. Sagat (762 KB)

All for now, minna-san. Happy Easter! Take care of yourselves until next time. And remember: discipline, justice, commitment! 🙂

Today we’ve got another game review for you — a blast from the past known as Street Fighter Jenn, complete with a link for you to download the game yourself! You’ll need DOSBox to run it, though. (And hmmm, it looks like there’s a new version… gotta get me summa that!)

Also, many thanks to Jenn Dolari for making this awesome game waaay back when and all of her subsequent info about it (to say nothing of some other stuff that I’ll write about in later articles). If you download the game, you may notice that the characters are a little less likely to murder you with their super moves than I suggested in the review — that’s ’cause Jenn actually updated the game and made it so the CPU opponents are, well, less likely to murder you with their super moves. She’s also included a graphic that’ll give you a point of reference for changing the game options, which may come in handy. See? She cares. She’s also got a couple of webcomics (A Wish for Wings and Closetspace), so do read them if you get the chance. They might be filled with yummy candy. 🙂

Until next time, minna-san!

FINALLY, Scary-Crayon is back to normal — or at least as normal as it ever gets around these parts. Here’s hoping y’all enjoyed this weekend’s April Foolery! 🙂 As promised, I’ve linked the layout in the content pages so you can always revisit the horrific Disney-Crayon if you feel the need. And speaking of April Fool’s Day layouts, here’s the one we did in ’05. It’s absolutely terrifying.

That said, today we take an in-depth look at the 2003- TMNT series. I admit that I wasn’t initially all that keen on the series — things started off kind of boring and there have always been far too many filler episodes for my tastes — but things have picked up in recent weeks to the point where I really can’t wait to see what happens next. I could do without the gimmicky 4Kids theme days and the cool contests that I’m sadly too old to enter (no fair; I want to win G.I. Joe figures and Winx Club dolls too!), but still. TURTLE POWAAA!!!! 😀

Until next time, minna-san. Ja!

Sorry about the lack of articles as of late — I’ve been hard at work on this special Disney-Crayon layout. Hope y’all got a kick out of it! I’m thinking I’ll leave it up for the duration of the weekend and then maybe archive it as an article or something. I dunno. Hoping to have a new article up on Monday, too. Fingers crossed.

WELCOME TO APRIL, FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😉

But first, there’s A Crayon Haiku #49, in which we briefly pay tribute to Rogue! I didn’t harp on this point about the films (’cause I could seriously go on forever, or at least quite a while), but another problem with them is that although she may be a decent actress, Anna Paquin is simply nowhere near hot or charismatic enough to play Rogue. It’s even worse than the Kirsten Dunst as MJ thing with the Spider-Man movies, because at least with them Dunst isn’t a distraction in the role. Every time Paquin walks onto the screen and they address her as “Rogue”, however, I want to shout, “Oh, get the hell out of here.” Of course, that may be because the Spider-Man films are far superior movies and I’m less inclined to shout at everything I see. Man, I hate those X-Men flicks.

And yes, it’s been over a month, but there’s new content in the Dusty Plastic HELL department with the 79th Hot Flash! This one came to mind as a result from a comment by Tetsu Deinonychus regarding the pitiful X3 incarnation of Juggernaut. Looks to the contrary, it’s probably one of the more involved comics we’ve done, given that it involved extensive modification to a Zangief Pocket Fighter sprite (hell if I was going to do it in multiple poses, though) and includes characters from several different games. But why the Juggernaut and Dazzler pairing, you ask? I admit to being something of a Juggy and Dazz shipper, primarily because of The Uncanny X-Men #217-218. I’ll probably end up reviewing them one day, but suffice it to say that Juggernaut pursues Dazzler across a snowy expanse because he is a fan of her music and she ends up exhausting herself to the point of collapse trying to fight him when all he wants to do is give her a big hug or get her autograph or something. It’s hilarious. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the background is from Final Fight 3.

Crayon Trivia Fun Fact: The Juggernaut was the subject of the very first Crayon Haiku.

Okay, that’s all for now — ja ne, minna-san!

So we’ve taken a bit of a break on the Hot Flashes, but the Crayon Haikus are still coming on strong! Taking its cue from today’s episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, A Crayon Haiku #48 examines the not so subtle differences between the original Mirage comic book version of Renet and her animated counterpart. What happened? Maybe 4Kids didn’t think today’s youngsters could handle Renet in her original, uh, glory. Or maybe she was lactating back then.

Or at least that’s my assessment after watching the trailer. I suppose that a good film was too much to expect after two depressingly less than spectacular live action outings, but with this one I swear that Hollywood is just trying to figure out how shitty an “epic” action movie (assuming X3 has a longer runtime than its predecessor) has to be before people call it what it is. I think there’s a certain length after which moviegoers will automatically conclude that a movie is good no matter what — because you know, while I can recall quite a few reviewers saying that a movie was too long, I can’t recall any recent movies that exceeded the two-hour mark that people didn’t like. Shit, people freely admitted that Jackson’s King Kong was waaay too long and still loved it. It’s possible that I’m wrong on this, though, so feel free to note some long movies that didn’t fare too well among the critics or at the box office.

Impressions of the trailer and review are also welcome. Ja!

Once again, culinary insanity returns to Scary-Crayon with the birth of The Legendary Glazed Toroid Fishstick Sandwich, the first in a series of food articles designed to find new applications for aging overbaked donuts. Despite the fearsome and greasy appearance of the sandwich, it’s definitely among the better edible creations that I’ve authored to date — so I seriously recommend making your own if you’ve got the ingredients and the courage to do so. Of course, I always say that. 😉

Until next time, minna-san!

Following last month’s lengthy review of X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants, Scary-Crayon turns to another of Paragon Software’s comic-themed PC titles — The Amazing Spider-Man. Unlike the former game, however, I can’t entirely recommend this one, as in addition to being a poor and quite creepy representation of Spidey, the game’s bloody impossible. You may have better luck than I did, but still — this is not a game to be taken lightly, if it is, in fact, a game to be taken at all. As before, should you wish to play, DOSBox is probably your best bet. Anyway, enjoy the review! After a few more, I’m planning a slight layout adjustment and the addition of a games section to the site. No telling exactly when that’ll happen, mind you, but I just thought I’d mention it. ;P

As noted in A Crayon Haiku #47, some pretty questionable stuff happens on “Justice League Unlimited”. And to think, children are watching this show! By the way, did anyone catch the episode when Grodd tried to turn everyone on Earth into an ape? What the fuck was that supposed to accomplish? They still retained their intelligence — and, in the cases of the superheroes, their powers — so I kinda don’t get it, especially given that Grodd has consistently been shown to prefer human women to gorilla gals. I mean, Giganta started out as a bleeding gorilla, and he altered her genetic structure to make her look like a natural (human) woman! And I thank him for that, because Giganta is seriously hot.

Seriously.

So here’s the first of those “That’s So Raven” articles I promised — a rather serious analysis of “True Colors”, the Black History Month episode. Like I say before posting all of these articles, while this is Scary-Crayon and my primary intent with the site is to entertain you folks, I do hope that occasionally my writings provide some food for thought and/or encourage you to consider things from another perspective. So read, comment, let me know what you think, etc., whether it’s general remarks about the show or comments concerning today’s deeper subject matter.

By the way, regarding the last such piece on Scary-Crayon, my Wikipedia research alerted me to the apparent fact that George Washington Carver was not the inventor of peanut butter. I find this incredibly interesting, seeing as how I’m almost certain that I was taught this information during one of the Black History Month units in elementary school. Now I’m not suggesting that teachers intentionally misinformed us in order to bolster the accomplishments of so-called “African-Americans”, but the apparent thoroughness of the curriculum research (that is, the lack of it) leads me to wonder about the sincerity of these attempts to enlighten students about “black history,” especially since I’ve never heard a compelling reason for studying it (as opposed to addressing these individuals in the context of their respective accomplishments).

Anyway, ponder and enjoy! Next time we’ll have lighter fare for you. 🙂

It’s been a while since we had a game review, kiddies, so here it is — a lengthy examination of X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants. In addition to an introduction that touches on the similarities and differences between this early X-Men game and the more recent X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and a ton of screencaps, there’s also a strategy guide of sorts to help out readers who are eager to play the game for themselves! And I totally recommend doing so. As noted in the review, you can get it from Home of the Underdogs, a gaming site with tons of abandonware games available for download. If you’re running a newer computer, you’ll have to use VDMSound or DOSBox (apparently folks prefer the former, though I’ve had far more success running old games with DOSBox). Both are commandline programs, though, so while VDMS integrates itself into the Windows shell (I can’t speak for other OSes!), you’ll probably want to use a frontend like D-Fend for DOSBox. Anyway, enjoy the review, and good luck getting the game up and running! And, um, excelsior!

He made another funny! 😆

Hiya! We’ve got two short pieces for you this evening: A Crayon Haiku #46 and Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #76. I don’t have a whole lot else to add, but goodness, after seeing what I saw before snapping the haiku shot I really wonder what the hell is wrong with people. Or is my sense of what looks good totally off base? You tell me…

Yes, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day — and whether you’re reveling in your loving relationship or are sadly alone (*hugs*), Scary-Crayon’s here to bring you a little love with two new articles! While our brief assessment of Triton’s Chocolate Dipped Banana Bits may provide a bit of amusement and a potential gift recommendation for readers who happen to be dating gorillas, our lengthy review of not one, not two, but three varieties of LifeStyles Flavored Condoms is really the main attraction, if only because I wear bunny ears throughout the entire article for some inexplicable reason. Could the drunkenness have anything to do with it? Possibly.

I type very well when I am drunk. Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day!

P.S. Here’s another clip to try viewing at home. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

You know, I actually had to leave my room and go outside to shoot the last panel of Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #77. Like, where it’s cold and stuff. I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE IT! I’m also planning to get some special V-Day pieces up in the next couple of days, but I guess this comic’s kinda relevant to the theme of the day as well. Consider it a preview, then.

Warm it up
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