Icon. Showstoppah. Main Eventah.

Death Tunnel is not what I would call a good movie. Yes, there are hints of interesting ideas such as the setting of an old abandoned tuberculosis hospital in the middle of Kentucky. But most of the movie is just plain bad.

The plot revolves around a sorority girl named heather who just transferred to a college in KY. She attends this party with friends where all she and four other friends are somehow transported to said medical facility to survive all five floors for five hours. It is not said how they get there or how they are unconcious and wake up with gas masks on their head, but supposedly this was part of the party. I can honestly say I’ve never been to a party where the theme is to randomly knock out five girls and put gas masks on them, then throw them into a place once filled with a highly contagious disease.

Okay, MAYBE a rave or two was like that without the TB…

Also, the hospital is haunted. Oh wait, no it’s not. It’s a trick by a fraternity. Oh wait. No, there really are ghosts and they kill the franternity brothers putting this on. Oh wait no. It’s all an elaborate scheme by the descendents of those that ran the hospital into scaring the descendents of those that died there into not suing them. Oh wait. It’s actually an elaborate plot by the ghosts to trick the last five surviving descendents into the “death tunnel” so that it can kill them ala House on Haunted Hill (The remake, not the Vincent Price one). Oh wait. The main character is actually the ghost of someone who died there even though she somehow escape and became a party girl at college and now she has spectral turberculosis and the guy who is the descendent of the main doctor of the evil hospital decides to stay with her and find a cure. For ghost turberculosis.

So what was good about the movie? The hospital was well done and the girls were cute, but everything else was awful. Bad acting, bad accents, bad special effects, bad plot, bad ghosts, bad everything. I could see say, my friend Dan exploring this hospital if it was real.

This was one of those freebie movies I picked up from Swapadvd.com. I’ll admit I spent two years debating on picking it up as I usually like indie horror, but I am so glad I didn’t spend money on this. Good concept but terrible execution.

Worth Keeping: No.
Rating: 3/10

Saturday wasn’t too bad. A lot of editing, a date, some working out, some dvd watching and some Pokemon Ranger.

Sunday however, was batshit insane. It started out pretty normally. I got up, worked out while watching a movie, forgot to eat and got ready for a date at 6pm. Well, about 4pm I start to take off to the Pentagon City Mall so I could park and take the metro. I had a feeling I needed to leave early to be on time…and I was right.

About three blocks from my house I drove past an opposum that was sitting in the road shaking. At first i was like, “Oh the poor thing’s going to get hit. Then a car drove by me and swerved out of the way. The little critter was either not afraid or cars…or couldn’t move for some reason. That whole helping woodland creatures instinct kicked in, so I parked my car and got out to look at her. She didn’t hiss or run away. I had gloves and a thick coat on, so I pet her back. She hissed and took about two steps away. he back leg was dragging a bit so I assumed she had a broken leg or had been hit by a car. I couldn’t just leave her there, so I went to my car, grabbed the only thing I had (a dress shirt that I keep in case of some last minute formal thingie.) and wrapped the opposum up in it. She hissed one more time, but didn’t try to get away. It was like finding Mr. Biteums all over again.

I pet her for a while before picking her up to make sure she understood I wasn’t going to hurt her. She tried to play dead once or twice, but in the end, she realized I wasn’t going to do anything but help so she just stared at me with this bright (but beady) eyes.

I picked her up and put her in my car and took her home. I’m thinking “I should let Christina know I’m going to be late,” but honestly if your date texted you with, “Sorry. Found a possum. May be late,” wouldn’t you think that was the lamest excuse ever?

I called Heather and asked where she kept the cat food, since I know Opposums love that. I poured some onto the chair where I sat her and she instantly perked up and turned around, even while bundled in a blanket and began devouring it. She was a pretty hungry opposum. When she turned she did almost fall off the chair but I caught her and she didn’t his, snap or anything like a normal opposum would. I think by this point she knew I was her friend. I called three different animal shelters and finally found one nearby to take her to. They were surprised that the opposum was this frienly and that it let me pick her up/bundle her up/put her in a box with cat food with no resistance. It was like she was domesticated already, but that’s illegal in VA I soon found out.

The Animal clinic thanked me for bringing her in and remarked that she was thin and indeed something was wrong with her back leg. They think she was rolled by a car. Still, she was energetic, had a strong appetite and let the vets inspect her without any problem. They gave me her case number and told me she would be going to an animal rehabber that specialized in opposums and that she’ll probably be released into the wild. They did say if she suffered pelvic damage she may have to be put down, which worries me as she was so friendly and happy and alive, but as her back legs did work (mostly) and she was able to walk a bit on her own and turn around in order to eat food, that she was going to be okay. I actually wanted to keep her but legally I couldn’t. After I made sure everything was okay, I rushed to park my car, got on the metro and was only a minute or two late for my date who thought the whole incident was cute and sweet. She did agree that if I backed out due to opposum protection, that she wouldn’t have believed it and thought it was a brush off.

Christian and I went to the Bricksletter and had a good meal. We were there for about 2.5 hours and then I came back to my car…only to find the automated payment machine ate my ticket and so there was no way to get out. Security wouldn’t help and the parking people were going for the night (9:15pm) so I was trapped in the garage! I actually found a mall employee (Cute girl named Lauren) who agreed to help me out after she revealed there is a secret way to get out of those parking garages without paying. I wanted to pay! I tried to pay, but fuck if anyone would let me. I did forget to get her number though, so I’ll probably never see her again. Too bad. tres cute.

I came home, washed up, had a bit of chest pains that turned out to be a deep cough, watched Death Tunnel which we’ll talk about later and ended the night making fun of the Food Network challenge by discussing thing sthat we new would win since the “prize” is to have your dish listed on the menu at Fridays. Basically our eyes were “What would drunk/stoned people eat that would potentially cause heart issues down the line?”

Ideas include:

The Appetizer Burger. Chicken fingers for the patty, with a bun stuffed with mozarella and bacon (Like stuffed crust pizza) and deep fried mushrooms and onion rings for garnish.

The Sarah Palin: A blondie (white chocolate brownie) to represent the untouched Arctic wilderness filled with that lava cake gooie fudge (to represent oil lurking beneath the soil)

New York Nachos: Basically Poutine but Americanized: Tater tots lathered in brown gravy, cheese and bacon.

GRAVY SLAMMERS: Too often gravy isn’t used for a dipping sauce. Not anymore. A gravy slammer would be something akin to au jus but more AMERICAN! AMERICA BABY! It would include a range of sandwiches like sausage patty with cheese and bacon that you would SLAM DUNK into a bowl of gravy. The bowl would be a bread bowl so you could break it off and slam it into the gravy as well. EXTREME!

This led to Slammers spin offs like CHEESE SLAMMERS, FUDGE SLAMMERS and more. Then it hit 2 am and we realized we needed sleep.

This my friends, was my sunday. I’ll try and upload the picture I have of Bitey the Opposum swaddled in a shirt for you later.

I’ve never been a HUGE anime buff, but I’ve had spurts. All of them thanks to Matsumoto Leiji. In my single digits it was Star Blazers that led me to Robotech, Vehicle Voltron (Fuck the lions) and the like. In high school it was the amazingly (and sadly out of print) Galaxy Express 999 that led me to Fist of the North Star, Vampire Hunter D, 8 man After and more. In college it was rediscovering Captain Harlock that brought me to Slayers, Tenchi Muyo! and yes, even Pokemon.

Sadly it was also the leijiverse that broke me from my interest in Anime with the god awful Harlock Saga. Which is too bad as I was really interested in The Galaxy Railways as it appeared based off the ol’ 999, which is one of my favorite pieces of animation ever (Please someone bring this to DVD, with the English dub cast, if only for my 15 year old self). I decided not to pick it up so as not to be let down as Leiji appeared to have done a Claremont/Frank Miller/Clive Barker/etc and just didn’t realized he should have quit.

How wrong I was. I ended up getting The Galaxy Railways for free through Swapadvd.com on 9/14/2008 when I saw the full series listed and I grabbed it. Hey, it was free. It arrived on 9/22 and it then sat for three and a half months until I worked up the courage to watch it and thus flush my childhood down the toilet.

Stupid, stupid Alex. This is easily the best Anime I’ve seen released this decade. It was everything the old Leiji was known for and more. I think it might be up there with Robotech: The Macross Saga as my favorite dramatic anime ever. It touching, moving, exciting, and I was actually shocked at a few things they did (and who they killed), when usually I can tell how an anime is going to unfold a third of the way into it. There were a lot of great little homages to previous Leijiverse animes, but no direct links. I know there’s a second series and an OVA that has never made it to the US, and it probably never will, but then that’s why I have the regionless DVD player.

I burned through all ten hours of this anime in about three days, watching it as I worked out, ate, and even edited people’s pieces on Diehardgamefan.com. I loved the characters, plot and most of all, it reminded me of being a wide eyed 6 or 7 year old encountering the Leijiverse for the first time. Out of all the anime in my collection, I think I might recommend this above anything else I own from the 21st century. The ending is a bit weak and the last six episodes that comprise it are a bit out of left field, but it’s still amazingly done. It’s a nice piece of serious drama, with the occasional laugh out loud bit. This is definitely a change from my usual light hearted anime tastes but it’s oh so worth it.

Is it Worth Keeping Oh hell, yeah.
Rating: 8/10

I would have never owned this DVD if not for getting it free off Swapadvd.com. Watching the event unedited was amazing. It had been years since ECW died and ECW was a big part of my life growing up. It was Philly’s own wrestling promotion and you can’t really BE from Philadelphia and not know ECW. Several friends and long time readers have seen the pics of a teenage Alexand Lucard hanging out with the likes of New Jack and Joel Gertner. Readers with astue memories may recall me mentioning One Night Stand about six months before it was announced in my old LJ. It pays to have connections. ;-)

This DVD though was a bit pants. Not only was the language edited, but even the crowd was edited. Where was the singing of “Enter Sandman?” Why would they redub the music, thus tainting the DVD for all to have. Why would you include an alternate commentary track that is just Bradshaw running down the matches constantly instead of say, ECW vets talking about the matches. Just watching this broke my heart a little bit.

Also, the Benoit Vs. Guerrero match is all sorts of levels of creepy now.

The two best matches on the PPV, that of Masato Tanaka Vs. Mike Awesome and The Dudleys Vs. Dreamer and Sandman are available on ECW Bloodsport and ECW: Extreme Rules respectively. There are a few other matches on here that are okay, like the international Three Way Dance, Lance Storm’s last match, and Psicosis vs Rey Mysterio Jr, but the only match on here that was awesome to see again was Sabu vs Rhyno, and even that isn’t a sell for me.

I’m still not sure if I’m going to keep this or not. After all, It is ECW One Night Stand, but it’s a heavily edited and tarnished version of the original event, and I already have the best matches on other DVD’s. I’m not sure if it’s the editing, it hasn’t held up over the past three and a half years or if I’m just that out of wrestling but it just didn’t have the same effect as it did back then.

Is It Worth Keeping? Probably not, but we’ll have to see…

Rating: 4/10

This came up randomly via my DVD collection software, DVD Profiler, so I thought, hey why not? It’s two cartoons in a row, but the first was anime and this is American, so it’s all good.

I remember when the Powerpuff Girls first came out. I was in college and they were the latest edition to “CartoonCartoon,” an older cartoon oriented block that kids could still enjoy. Ronni (my gf at the time) and I were only fans of Dexter’s Lab. Things like Cow and Chicken were just dismal. I can’t even remember what the third cartoon was.

But the Powerpuff Girls? That caught our attention even more so than Dexter’s Lab (Which, for Trivia Buffs, is where Mr. Chewie Biteums’ name came from). To be honest though, it wasn’t really the Powerpuffs themselves that drew our attention as much as the evil green monkey Mojo Jojo, which we quickly learned I could do a spot-on impression of.
The cartoon was cute and yet a pretty mature satire on superhero cartoons/comics in general. My favorite episodes generally featured Bubbles in some way. Such a sweetie.

This collection is nearly 300 minutes of the very first Powerpuff girls. It SAYS first season, but I know I saw these cartoons spread out over more than a year, so I’m skeptical of that claim. It was fun to watch these again, but I also remember why our enjoyment of the cartoon quickly burned out. There was only so much you could do with these characters before it got old and predictable.

As well, at the end of this month, they’re releasing the complete Powerpuff Girls series (1500 minutes) for around sixty dollars. You might as well get that instead of paying $30 for 300 minutes. At the same time, this collection is out of print, but you can get used copies on ebay or amazon for under ten dollars. It’s really your call. I wouldn’t have picked this up if I hadn’t gotten it for free off Swapadvd.com, but I also wouldn’t pay $60 for the full series. Free for the few episodes of this show I liked was worth it.

Is It Worth Keeping ? Mild recommendation.
Rating: 5.5/10

1. An awesome potential opportunity I have to wait until the week of the 12th to hear back from. TIME MUST GO FASTER!

2. Diehard GameFAN staff commentaries are up: http://diehardgamefan.com/2009/01/01/2008-year-in-review-staff-commentaries/ Twenty of us wrote our top games up for 2008 and by this time next week we’ll have our “Best of 2008″ awards up.

3. Dates Saturday and Sunday. Huzzah.

4. So busy with day job. Lots of applications to turn it.

5. Six Pokemon Articles have been written including one about the Echinda and a quick aside about their creepy genitals. Hey Kids, POKEMON!

6. Trying to whip my staff into shape while not making them cry at the same time.

7. Reading a book of Designism for Business Management

8. Realizing I’m going to have to get my MPA or MBA soon, especially with the new opportunity probably paying for it. Still, I’d rather get my MA in English or History as I’d like to eventually teach college…for half of what I’m making now though. Eep.

9. I ned to &^*%^&&%* beat the American version of Pokemon Ranger.

10. I’m counting the days until March 22nd as that will be one busy week for me. Poke-Platinum marketing go!

In an attempt to help me get down my DVD collection I’ve decided to do a mini DVD review each day from something in my collection. I’m at 478 right now and it’s always fluctuating, so if you have any requests you can go to http://www.invelos.com/dvdcollection.aspx/Alexlucard and see what I currently own. To kick this off, I decided to go with the last DVD I watched which happens to be…

Happy Lesson: Teacher’s Pet Collection

This was one of those things I picked up off Swapadvd.com with my freebie points. It looked like it was going to be a take off of the “Harem Anime” genre that encompasses Tenchi Muyo! and Love Hina. I loved both and this was free, so hey, why not?

I went in with absolutely no expectations and ended up loving this thing. It contained the full fourteen episode first series and three of the five OVA’s. I’m not sure WHY they didn’t translate the last two OVA’s, but as I couldn’t find a reason, I have to assume ADV films doesn’t know either.

The series revolves around a young oprhan named Chitose and how five of his teachers decide to adopt him - all at the same time. Now Chitose has five moms, all of which they must keep secret so their fellow teachers, students and the student’s parents don’t find out and read anything scandalous into it.

Unlike usual “harem animes” this is not a show where one average dude has five women in love with him and he has to fight them off/choose between them. Well, all five ARE in love with him, but it’s a maternal love and the show never goes past that. There are two girls in love with Chitose though, and there is romantic conflict there, even though neither are a good match nor is Chitose interested in either of them.

The series is quite funny and i found myself laughing a lot. It’s also got moments of seriousness/drama, but for the most part, this is all about making you laugh at the highly improbable situations that occur when you have five moms ranging from the sexy school nurse to the hardcore women’s gym teacher to a more emotionless/psychotic version of Tenchi Muyo’s Washu named Kisaragi Ninomai who is definitely my favorite.

There’s two series that come after: Happy Lesson Advance and Happy Lesson Final, but after reading the synopsis for each, I have no intention of importing those (they haven’t been brought stateside yet) as they go the route of Love Hina Next which pretty much craps everything up. Especially Happy Lesson Final which appears to completly ruin the feel of this series by bringing in some incest.

So, for free, this was a lot of fun and possibly the best thing I’m managed to land on swapadvd.com yet,a lthough Gamerz and Trumph comes close. This goes for about $35 on Amazon, which I think is slightly over priced compared to full run 26 episode anime series costing around the same. Still it is quite funny and one of the better comedy animes I’ve seen in a long time. I’m a bit dissapointed that the full OVA wasn’t localized and that the cost is a bit higher than it should be for a small anime run, but in the end it’s still cute, heartwarming and sweet, and I have to recommend it.

Worth Keeping? Yes!
Overall Rating: 7/10

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday break. I’m back at the office nursing a finger I sliced on a pair of scissors this morning. Man it’s been self injury week for me, with two ingrown toenails I had to remove, the aforementioned finger, picking a giant piece of glass out of the bottom of my foot, burning a knuckle on a finger, and a lot of blistery toes from doing about 12 miles on Friday. Poor little body o’ mine.

So what have I been up to?

Thursday
Seeing as I don’t celebrate Christmas, I got in a two hour run, ate some gourmet fusion Chinese included cheese fried rice (instead of egg, making it double awesome!), worked out, played some video game and generally relaxed. Still coming down off the high that was Tuesday’s encounter and offer of importance, but I’m waiting for things to be cemented before I talk about that publicly.

Alas, this was also the day Vlad’s dad had to go to the hospital and so he and Heather had to miss out on Friday’s festivities. In fact they were up and out the door EARLY this morning as he went under the knife, so here’s hoping things go well.

Friday
I discovered a straight 3 mile line from my house to the Pentagon City metro, so I walked there in the morning, had an early lunch at Nando’s and then met up with Kim for an 11 hour romp fest. I had tickets to 12th Night and we both really enjoyed it. As with any performance of this play, Malvolio and Toby Belch stole the show. It was a good performance all around, although I’ve never seen one that emphasis the tit and dick jokes this much. Viola also had a weird face where she had a Jack Nicholson Joker-esque smile on her face, even when expressing sadness. I think someone worked at Ajax Chemicals…

After that we didn’t want to part, so we walked around for a bit, found a place selling half price tickets and we got tickets for a SECOND play, this one being something called Shear Madness. We ate dinner at Oylamel and I finally had the Grasshopper tacos. This disturbed Kim, for obvious reasons. Then we walked all the way to the Kennedy Center where we saw Shear Madness which turned out to be an interactive Murder Mystery done in a hair salon. It was okay, but nothing amazing. I’m actually kind of surprised it’s played for 15 years non-stop.

After that, we both hopped the comp bus to Foggy Bottom and parted for the day. This was about 10:30pm. I was dropped off at the Pentagon City metro and walked home, although about a mile in it started to rain. Ick.

Saturday
This was kind of a fuck all date filled with writing, working out, hanging out, and that’s about it.

Sunday

I kind of got sucked into the Saber Rider collection yesterday. I watched the first DVD straight through. That still remains the best theme song (and entire score) of the 1980’s cartoon series I’ve sat through. I managed to track down both soundtracks too. WEP also threw in a set of the figures from the series since I was one of those rare Americans that adore the show. It still hurts my brain that the guys behind Voltron and Saber Rider are the guys who made Denver the Last Dinosaur.

Yesterday was also the multiple injuries day. I also used up 20 or so of my credits finally on Swapadvd.com so I have a shit load of weird free DVD’s coming like Wrestlemaniac, the Rey Mysterio Jr. as a psycho killer who stalks porn stars and eats their faces (I know, right?), Executive Koala, Calimari Wrestler, some bad indie horror, a bunch of documentaries, and more. Whee.

Wind and Water Puzzle Battles
Developer: Yuan Works
Publisher: Redspot Games
Genre: Puzzle
Released on 11/10/2008

Ladies and gentlemen, it is the last week of December 2008 and I’m reviewing a newly released game for The Sega Dreamcast. Isn’t life awesome? For those of you who may be surprised by this, I’m happy to tell you that the Dreamcast is still receiving new games, even though the system has been dead for several years. In 2007, I purchased all three new games for the system: Last Hope, Trigger Heart Excella and Karous. Of course THE came to Xbox Live this year and Karous is coming to the Wii the first quarter of 2009, but what can I say? There’s something about owning shooters and the Dreamcast that makes my heart go pitter pat.

So here I am with this year’s only release for the Dreamcast. There were other that were supposed to come out, like Dynamite Dreams, but they never came out. So far for 2009, we know a shooter by the guys that did Last Hope is coming out named Dux which you can already pre-order on sites like Play-Asia or directly from the manufacturers. This game is made by Yuan Works, a company based in Costa Rica and thankfully Wind and Water Puzzle Battles is in both English and Japanese, and is also region free, so any Dreamcast can play it. Heck, you can even go on to Amazon.com and purchase this game for $39.99 and it’s eligible for Amazon Prime (Which is what I did!).

You’re probably wondering why I’m covering a game for a dead system, right? Well, it’s because it’s NOT DEAD. As long as people are still making games for a system out of love for what was, then the heart of the console is still beating. Plus, this gives you, the DHGF reader, a chance to learn about a game you might have otherwise not known about and even more importantly, gives you the impetus to go buy it because you want to experience the surrealism of playing a new game for the Dreamcast, whether or not I enjoyed it.

Oh that’s right. This is a review. I should probably tell you what I thought of the game, no? Then read on my intrepid reader, for it’s time to let loose that Sega scream one last time…or until I review Dux next year.
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Below is a list of the 31 awards and the 5 nominees for each category we’re doing over at Diehardgamefan.com. We’ll have the official winners and staff commentary around the first-second week of Jan, so keep checking the site for that.

For now, peruse the winners, and click on a name to see a review (Not necessarily by me, thank god!) to see what you might have missed out on this year.

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