Xros minis are stupid.

What is this shit? This is fucking stupid. I don't care who the fuck you are, War Greymon doesn't fucking digivolve in Seadramon. That's just stupid.

I love the parallel of the megazords and super organisms (see, because it's multiple multicellular organisms working as one organism... get it? It's cool, dammit), but you can't make that mesh with traditional digivolution.

Like, lets say the original five dinozords are like the champion level, and the megazord is an ultimate/perfect. Okay, cool, makes sense. Because the Dragonzord is about equal to the megazord, it would ALSO be an ultimate, right? Fair enough. And when you have the Dragonzord combine with the other 5 dinozords, you get one that sacrifices speed for power. So, it's still really an ultimate. So the Dragonzord is an ultimate that, because of the technicalities of megazords, digivolves into another ultimate. I can understand that, and it makes perfect sense, especially if you then say Titanus is another ultimate, and the Ultrazord is a mega/ultimate.

But instead of working like that, what the xros minis do is mix in digimon whose level we don't know (or they technically don't have one, ala Ohakadamon or Apocalymon, although Shoutmon is pretty obviously a champion at this point) with older digimon, such as Agumon and Triceramon, who we already know everything about.

So, what you get is, to go back to the analogy, individual zords combining with individual zords, both of which we know the levels of, to get a third individual zord that we also know the level of already. Like, if the Pteranodon and Mastodon combined to get the Triceratops. That's fucking stupid.

That's just the analogy. The reality is that if you xros any of the champion leveled digimon Greymon, Seadramon, Tyrannomon, or Monochromon, or either of the ultimate leveled Metal Greymon or Triceramon, or even the mega level War Greymon or Imperialdramon with the also mega level Magnadramon, the result is the rookie level Dracomon.

This is why the xros minis are stupid.

But more than that, the way that you xros is to beat an A.I. digimon in battle, and what species you kill will determine what the resulting xros will be. So... if you can get a War Greymon by killing ONE enemy, and all of the digimon you can obtain are equal in power anyways... what's the fucking point of even playing it? If you aren't raising your digimon to get a specific one... why ARE you raising it? Wouldn't it be simpler just to let the stupid fucker die?

Or, better yet, just never buy one to begin with? I certainly think so.

I fucking hate these xros minis, dude, I'm serious. I can't wait until like G10 or whatever when the xros thing is old hat and digimon do something that makes more sense. Maybe there will be a mass extinction and only the "metal" digimon will survive or something. Whatever, damn.

This is the dorkiest thing I have ever written...

Great Old One of the undisclosedperiodoftime: Cthynhi

 I've gotten asked about this one, and it's pretty important, so I'm gonna cover this right now.

First Appearance: "In His Daughter's Darkling Womb" by Tina L. Jens, 1997

Tina's story is incredibly important not only to Yog-Sothery, but to the more general and stupid Cthulhu Mythos. The biggest bomb in Yog-Sothery history is dropped in that story. If you follow that sort of thing, you won't need it explained to you, but for the others, let's examine.

Cthylla, one of Cthulhu's daughters (via Idh-yaa, perhaps better known as the Worm That Gnaws, but we'll get to that later), and a Brian Lumley creation, became a central figure in the Cthulhu Mythos when an ancient prophecy revealed that she was the key in continuing Cthulhu's legacy beyond the grave. Yes, while Cthulhu may eventually die by silly human standards, the great god himself would be reincarnated through the womb of his daughter.

What? Yes, not only is Cthulhu going to die, but Cthylla having a child will mean that he is already gone.

So if you want to use Lumley's Cthylla, in order to tell a story that's not contradictory (which, for those Yog-Sothery folks who don't understand, the Cthulhu Mythos people like to maintain a tight continuity and cohesive universe. No, they don't ignore like half of the writers including CAS. Yes, it doesn't make any sense. No, I'm not joking. Yes, people take this very seriously.), you're going to have to kill off the big C himself.

So... that's what Tina did.

So, just to make this as clear as crap:

CTHULHU IS DEAD IN CTHULHU MYTHOS CANON AS OF 1997.

HE CAN'T COME BACK.

THE FUCKING END.

Now, to normal folks like you and me who don't make the mistake of thinking that all of Yog-Sothery forms a cohesive whole that never contradicts itself, this is really cool, but not that big of a deal. If you go with it, there's about 15,000 other Great Old Ones you can use, and if you don't, no one really cares.

But read that bit off to a hardcore Mythos "scholar?" Pande-fucking-monium. "Cthulhu can't die! He's a god!"

No, no he's not. He's an alien with suspiciously octopus-like DNA, as Tina's story will attest. Yes, Cthulhu's kids have DNA. Weird? Not really, there are still real life scientists who think that all alien life in the entire universe MUST be made of DNA, and it's why we haven't officially recognized some Earthlings as being alive. They're called Nanobacteria, and they will fuck you up, but to some real live professional scientists, they are actually MORE alien than, say, Ghatanothoa.

But wait wait wait wait... hold the phone here. So who's Cthynhi, you ask? Well, Cthynhi IS Cthulhu. Sort of. He is the child of Cthylla and Mike the Mechanical monster (and also, *SPOILER* Katherine whatever her last name was) that is the supposed reincarnation of great Cthulhu himself.

At first Cthynhi seems relatively unremarkable for a great old one. Created via artificial insemination and reverse-genetic-engineered tech talk, the new great Cthulhu is essentially a carbon copy his mother, with no variations in form other than not having any pigment in his body.

But through, I guess magic or something, Cthylla transfers Cthulhu's... I don't know, soul or whatever, into Katherine's womb, creating either an Aryan super baby or a slimey, bloody ball of tentacles most likely analogous to Cthynhi's previous form.

The story is focused on the observation of Cthylla in a controlled environment and the personal crisis Katherine has gone/is going through about her inability to carry a child to term. Her womb is like poison to babies, I guess. Heheh, baby poison. Anwyas, the tone of the story extremely similar to "At the Moutains of Madness" with, if you can believe it, an 100% reliable narrator. Because of this, we learn a lot about the GOOs in the story as hard facts that wont sit well with the CM crowd. Just more reasons to love the story.

But as events wear on, it becomes apparent that Cthylla and her child aren't... all that predictable. Actually, that bit about Cthulhu's "soul" isn't really a joke. Cthylla touches the pregnant Katherine's belly with one tentacle and wraps another one around the young Cthynhi, sends a jolt into Kath, and then neglects Cthynhi, who starts to wither away like a husk. It should be obvious whats happening here.

And that's, unfortunately, all there is to him so far. I haven't seen any other stories featuring Cthynhi other than Tina's. It SEEMS really important, but just as hypocritical as always, CM folks seem to have forgotten this story exists, despite it's strict adherence to the Lumley and Lovecraft canon and Earth-shattering revelations that effect the main character of the series.

But what of Cthulhu? If Cthynhi is Cthulhu's reincarnation, then how did Cthulhu die in the first place? The good news is that there is an answer. The better news is that, if you're still reading, you're going to love it.

 Yep. Godzilla killed him.

Now, sure, Godzilla vs. Cthulhu is not canon to the Heisei series, no one is arguing that. It is, after all, fan fiction. Really good fan fiction that somehow makes this obnoxiously one-sided match seem fair (mostly through superfluous description of how long it takes Cthulhu to launch an "attack"), but fan fiction none the less.

However, it is the ONLY story ever written that gives so much as even a hint of just how Cthulhu is supposed to be dead in 1997. If you've read it, you'll recall that at the end of the "fight" Cthulhu takes a nasty hit from Godzilla's beam and realizes that if he continues to press his luck, he's going to die, and then runs away, hides in his tomb, and, here's the best part, PURPOSEFULLY RE-SINKS R'LYEH TO GET AWAY. So, the fight was near fatal for Cthulhu.

But that's not enough evidence, could Godzilla's beam weapon really be enough to kill Cthulhu in, as far as I can recall, one hit? Oh good lord yes. Follow along with me and let's figure out what happened together:

While the "sealed away by Elder Gods" bit is unique to three specific authors and isn't utilized outside of their work, the fact remains that Cthulhu is sealed underwater. By elder gods? Depends on who you ask, but Lovecraft would have told you that Cthulhu's city sank at an incredibly opportune time to save him from the "stars" because the "stars weren't right." To your average cultist nutjob this sounds like a mystical prophecy regarding the alignment of the stars in the sky. The night sky. Of earth. Well, that doesn't hold up very well to the whole "not being from earth" part, does it?

The tales from when Cthulhu was most active and NOT on earth come from his stay near the double-star Xoth. It was here that Cthylla herself was born, and where there happened to be a metric shit-ton of Great Old One and Outer God related occurances. Take your pick of GOO, I'll bet you dollars to donuts they were active in the Xothic system simultaneously with Cthulhu. So what is it about Xoth that attracted all those monsters, or, perhaps more accurately, all those writers?

Donald Tyson's Necronomicon (the ONLY serious complete effort) tells us that it isn't the alignment of the stars, but their color. Xoth is green. Green is not a color of star that appears naturally. Something was up with Xoth that made it green. When it was green colored, Cthulhu and his kin were thriving. On earth, with a yellow sun, Cthulhu eventually sunk himself until the sun's color was right.

Meaning, you know, green. It's actually incredibly simple, but it doesn't seem to click for a lot of folks. However, there is a sort of failsafe in the necronomicon. While the idea that different colors of radiation (hint), such as the hottest naturally occurring star, blue (hint hint), could be used to actually kill Cthulhu, it wouldn't really kill him because of a poorly worded passage about sigils on another planet that allow the GOOs consciousness to be passed into a different physical body. The exact process through which this occurs is poorly worded, like I just said, probably because it is not understandable in human terms.

Remember now, GOOs are still the children of Outer God's. Physical body or not, there is still something extra-cosmic about them that is literally impossible for us to understand fully. Obviously, this is what is meant by Cthynhi being a "reincarnation." It also means that blue radiation is the most deadly force in the universe to the physical body of (at least) Cthulhu.

So, Godzilla happened.

Now we have a failsafe explanation for the event's of "In His Daughter's Darkling Womb," as GXC occurs in between Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Destroyah, somewhere around 1995. But how can a non-canon fanfic in one continuity count as a viable prequel for something in another?

That answer, my friends, is the most glorious thing about Yog-Sothery. It's not a media empire. There is no singular controlling force. Ideas and names flow freely to be reinvented and reinterpreted throughout the decades from an innumerable number of perspectives and styles. James Ambhuel and the CoC rpg have also written Godzilla into the "Mythos" as well.

Now, for all the macho posturing this blog does, it's important to remember that I really do hate the "Mythos," and that Yog-Sothery is the real deal. Because of this, I don't really care whether someone wants to write a story about Cthulhu taking place in 29X6, it's all gravy. What IS important here that in the "Mythos" you do not have the luxury of NOT using Cthynhi, since he replaced your main character.

And that's really all that Cthynhi is notable for, honestly. We've seen one possible way a GOO can be born, but the monster itself is just an octopus/human hybrid. The story is far more remarkable than the monster itself, which, depending on who you ask, might be a good thing.

And having concluded my discussion of the controversy that Cthynhi creates, there isn't any more to say about the little bugger except that I hope somepony uses him again. I would like to see a grown up Cthynhi. That would be hella-sick.

Next time: probably Hoppwood Tenant or... naw, I'll save him for later. Maybe a classic, like a CAS one or something. I'll figure it out later. 

You know what Google? Fuck you. No, seriously, fuck you to hell

So I just found out SDA sent me an email. That's Scott David Aniolowski for the non-cool kids. This was in response to that big ass post I made about the GOO family tree.

Thing is, Google+ is fucking bullshit. It ruined everything forever and I hate it. I told Google to delete my fucking account but it was like "no thanks."

Why is that important? My Google+ page was basically an unbelievably private thing that I only used for one extremely specific purpose related to an extremely small group of people who were really close friends at the time. When that purpose was negated, it didn't need to exist anymore.

But Google+ is NOT gmail, right? So why does my Google+ name (which I FUCKING DELETED) show up on my emails? Probably I'm the only one that cares, but it pisses me off in ways I could have never imagined.

So in case my last post wasn't a clear enough indication, I'm never signing up for any social networking site ever again ever. If they can come in and change whatever the fuck they want on your god damn email, then I can't trust them ever again. Any of them. Fuck them all to hell. I hope google goes bust and yahoo wins.

But in case you're wondering, the name was a joke based on a video game that CERTAIN FAGGOTS (>=/) took WAAAAAY too seriously. I'm not looking forward to explaining that crap in the future.

Also, since I've gotten a lot of attention for writing about Yog-Sothery, I'm going to continue that trend, I suppose.

Maintaining a Presence in Social Networking

Takes up more time than I care to commit to it. I'm not really wired to treat social networking with anywhere near the same importance as, you know, real life. Updating stuff on a regular basis becomes a second job because you have to make yourself do it. I'm not really interested in that.

I still do things in a social networking perspective sporadically, but I don't feel like I should have to go out of my way to tell an audience of no one something stupid just to let them no i'm alive.

Now, that said, there are some things I do WANT to do as far as social networking is concerned. Usually, though, they get sidetracked or they turn into something else. There was this thing I got into for a while where I was gonna fill a book with accurate sketches of as many GOOs and OGs as I could cram in there, and then put them up on deviantart. Thing is, there are some things on dA I'd want to clean out since they were sort of meant for a really small audience (like 2 people), and it means that I would have to scan something like a billion pages out of a book without tearing out the pages, and it meant having to track down a fark load of stories that I'd have to either special order or that, in some cases, I have no real interest in reading, etc. etc.

So that book is just sort of sitting on my impromtu coffee table now.

Or, what about the time, on this very blog, I set about tracing the timeline(s) of the entire Godzilla/Tohoverse-Multiverse? That was taking an extraordinary amount of time. Eventually, I became interested in other things. Then, when I'd come back to it, I would be intimidated by the amount of work it would take to finish, plus no one was actually reading it anyways.

There are other unfinished projects on this blog, too: the ideas for the Eddie Dombrowski-centric Silent Hill game, the original idea I had for a Silent Hill game, how to fix pokemon, other dinosaur stuff, alien life cycle, and a whole bunch of stuff I never even finished or posted!

Now, maybe you think it's ironic that I'm writing a whole blog post about how I don't really care about keeping up with blogs, and it is, but it should serve a purpose as a disclaimer or something.

At any rate, I wanted to get it off my chest. But I'm seriously bored with this now, so I'm going to watch Freelance Astronauts play Oregon Trail now.




...no, I still haven't played the new Alice yet. Yes, I will soon. Before I turn 24 for certain, because then it will lose a good portion of it's impact. Yes, I've avoided spoilers because I have some REALLY OBNOXIOUSLY HIGH expectations for it. Yes, that means I am going to assume that there is a REASON she relapses outside of just wanting to be darker and edgier for darker and edgier's sake. It's not Tim Burton, after all, although the only things that bothered me about that movie were the homogenizing of the red queen and the queen of hearts, and the fact that Johnny Depp is now officially playing the same character over and over and he completely fucking ruined the mad hatter, and I hate him and never want to see him in anything after Edwards Scissorhands again.

Harumph. =/

How to Fix Pokemon

Hey there, audience of nobody! So I did a "how to fix Silent Hill" thing a while back, which was riddled with typos (probably because I was so engrossed in it I was only half paying attention), but I ended it by saying I was gonna post the possibilities for an Eddie Dombrowski game and a third, new idea I had that seemed rather obvious yet no one has used for a SH game before. Fat chance I ever get back around to that.

So THIS idea is even more rickety. The thing is Pokemon is an unrecognizable clusterfuck of stupidity nowadays. Pokemon happened, and it had a sequel, but after that shit went to hell and it's been hard to get back into it. There is one single unifying mistake that keeps me from playing any pokemon game post-Gold/Silver, but it's only one of a gazillion.

Thing is, though, pokemon is an extremely simple formula, and as such it is easy to get right as well as easy to twist the formula around. This post will cover what the problems are, how to fix them, and at least one or two redesign/redux pokemon. Maybe even the first four if there's time.

from DeviantArt I guess. SH+Pokemon is a terrible idea, by the way.

SECTION I: Identifying the problem

First things first, the huge glaring plot hole that keeps me up and night: THERE ARE ONLY 256 POKEMON! Where the fuck did this blue furry that's a clone-but-worse of Mewtwo come from and more importantly, how do we kill it?

Obviously the stars of pokemon are the mon themselves, so this one is impossible to ignore, and why are so many people okay with just abrubtly adding 400+ pokemon with no explanation whatsoever? Where did they come from? How can they exist? Where were they for the first two games and whycome nobody noticed them before?

Because some are okay with this, I feel like I need to qualify this and explain why there are only 256 pokemon. It's sad that I do, sure, but here we go:

Think back to the first pokemon game. How many pokemon were there? Professor Oak would tell you assertively in his "i'm older than you so you have to believe me" tone that there are EXACTLY 150 pokemon. No more, no less. Realize that this means he knows all about Mewtwo at the beginning of the game, and fully excepts it's reality. Realize this MUST mean he knows for a fact that Mew, #151, exists as well and is not just a pokemon cryptid. So right away he either means Mew, or is lying. Since the guy wrote the fucking pokedex himself, and numbers Mewtwo before Mew, he must be lying.

And remember how thick the lies were about Mew? You couldn't find any information on him from official channels at all. He was like a ghost, by contrast Missingno. was a complete unknown at this time.It was at least a year later before Nintendo finally admitted Mew's existence... even though you can't really deny it since Mewtwo requires Mew to exist.

But it didn't stop there did it? If Mew was #151, then what the hell was that thing in the first episode of the cartoon? It wasn't Moltres, and when Ash asked Oak about it, he flat out denied the possibility that the creature was ever real, and dismissed Ash's story entirely. That pokemon cryptid, when it was numbered, ended up as #250 not #152.

But there were also assertations that we "didn't really know how many species of pokemon there are." With Mew, Ho-oh, and Missingno., this was not surprising to hear. And when leaked images of G/S pokemon appeared, and Togepi, Slowking, Donphan, Pikabl... I mean Marill, and others began to appear in cards and the cartoon, it wasn't quite as surprising. The "pokegods" may have been fiction, but all myths have some basis in fact, and what once were the Giant Squids and Okapis of the world began to be found and acknowledged as real pokemon.

Now about pokemon genetics: Mew, the "all-embryo" pokemon, is a pokemon with all bases turned "on." Or Mew is the original pokemon genetically, whose dna (or whatever) contains all pokemon's information flipped on. He is the ur example. On the other hand, Missingno., number 000, is a pokemon severly lacking in genetic information, presumably with all bases turned "off."

That sounds like a sloppy explanation, so let me explain it this way: Missingno. is 00, Mew is FF. Now, Mew's actual hex address was never FF, but it gets the point across. Get it? So pokemon have a set number of genetic variations, or there is a finite number of possible pokemon that can be created from a limited and-not-prone-to-mutation poke-genes. They don't evolve like earthlings or Digimon, so they can't change the number of variations.

But what is that set number? Well, considering nobody ever said anything about there still being undiscovered pokemon after G/S, we must assume that at that time all possible pokemon had been discovered. Not surprising, since the level of technology in the pokemon world would easily allow scientists to alter the poke-genetics of a ditto or something to artificially simulate every possible pokemon in Mew's genes. So there are 252 pokemon, it's done.

So then this new game comes out and says, with no cryptozoology or mythology to back it up, "oh look, there's like 100 more fucking pokemon that no one has ever heard of until right this second and they're RIGHT OVER THAT HILL!"

Bullshit. You don't get to do that. Play by your own rules, and quit making shit up. Now, remember that example I gave about comparing poke-genetics to their hex addresses? So there are 256 possible pokemon in the original games, with one slot used for and egg and one being #000. In G/S, that leaves three Missingno. clones (instead of 104 in R/B). In fact, they were almost exactly the sameas G/S Missingno., so it would be wise to assume that there could still be four (or three depending on how you interpret the egg) pokemon that scientists have yet to artificially create yet. Hence, we stick to the original hexidecimal system and get 256 pokemon counting 0, going from #000 to #255.

Simply put, the in-game mythology of the series directly opposes any pokemon with a higher number than 255 existing.

Another thing: Missingno. sucks now. He's my favorite pokemon of all time and without him there's absolutely no reason to play.

Another thing: Pokemon is an rpg. Kinda a minor complaint since it didn't make the first games less enjoyable, but it's an awful genre is all. Pokemon are in Smash Bros., so why can't we do something fun to play? It'd be nice, but in truth pokemon is one of the handful of rpg's you can actually sit through (about 5 in all).

Also: What's with the versions? Why the hell would I buy a game twice? Memory limitations my ass, you can obviously fit information for all the pokemon in the cart, so why are the encounters fucked up? Quit money grubbing and just make a completed game. And while I'm on that, put it on an actual console. I don't want to squint to play a damn game.

SECTION II: Some Advice

So really the main problem is the number of pokemon. At first it seems like you can just say "well delete the other ones" and get on with it... but hold on. If we go with the hexidecimal system there are still three spots left. I know Leafeon was in some game in an official capacity, and he's been a pokegod from the beginning. So it would make sense that Charcolt, Sapusaur, and Rainer be included as well. Might as well stick Mewthree in there.But that brings it to #256, or 257 total pokemon...

Well, it is possible to avert the number if we are creative and play by the rules that pokemon has already set for us, something Nintendo never bothered to do. Case(s) in point: Porygon, Porygon 2, Mewtwo, and the fossil pokemon.

Both Porygons and Mewtwo are artificially created, meaning they don't need to, nay, they CAN'T be contained within the genetic material of Mew, they are manmade aberrations. Mewtwo is even supposed to be a clone of Mew, so we can go so far as to say it has the same genes as Mew but is interpreted differently.

Let's take a page from Final Wars and call this human folly the "M" base. Porygon could be 0M, Porygon 2 is 2M, and Mewtwo is M2, just for fun. Adding this to the naturally occuring poke-bases makes 17. To calculate how many species of pokemon are possible with the expanded natural and artificial genome, just square it, and we get 289, that's still including #000, so up to #288. Further, there is a "pokemon" called Porygon Z which is evolved from Porygon 2 in one of those newer games, but with just a little imagination and if we bother to justify his existence, he now fits in perfectly with the rest of the cast! Even better, it allows more space for artificial, man-made pokemon.

Now the fossils: as stated before, poke-genetics are static, Mew is everything any pokemon could ever be, and pokemon do not evolve. So, how does that explain fossil pokemon? We can't throw everything out the window because not only does the evidence weigh heavily against pokemon actually evolving, but Mew can still transform into Kabuto, presumably the oldest of the fossils, so Kabuto MUST fit in somehow.

But Mew can transform into Porygon too, right? Sure, but Porygon is still created from poke-genetics, and like Mewtwo, we should assume that the "M" base stands for metaphorical, because I'm trying to explain poke-genetics in hexidecimal, and Mewtwo IS a clone.

So whatever the alteration is, Mew can duplicate it even with non-altered pokemon dna. If this is the case, might there be other, completely natural bases that have simply disappeared over time? The thought is a little scary once you realize pokemon cannot increase their biological diversity over time, and will eventually boil down to one species before going extinct forever, but it is a fair assumption. An "extinct" base is completely fair game too, since they "we would have found them by now" is no longer an excuse, although the idea of living relic poke-cryptids is exciting, and I've always kinda thought Tyranitar was one such pokemon... no basis for that, I just always considered him the official version of "Tyranticus" or whatever that pokegod's name was.

So, let's add another base that was lost to time in all pokemon other than Mew, and call it "P" for prehistoric. That brings the total number of pokemon up to 324, or from #000 to #323.

By simply taking the game's own explanation for pokemon's existence and scrutinizing the pokemon that are already there before all the ass-pulling and shark-jumping and using the power of our imaginations, we have expanded the number of possible pokemon from 252 to 324! Thats 68 pokemon that make sense in the in-game universe!

It's that easy, and we haven't even gotten darker and edgier yet.

SECTION III: Darker and Edgier for the 90's

by Canyx or something like that. It's Tyranitar if you couldn't tell.

The pokemon themselves are a hodgepodge of mismatched origins, dumbed down awesomeness and loose ends that are ignored. For instance, did you know Butterfree and Venomoth's designs are backwards? Really? Then why the hell does Butterfree look exactly like a Venonat, and Venomoth look like a Metapod? Ever stop to think about why Kangaskhan's child, who is clearly different from Kangaskhan proper and since going through a metamorphosis counts as a new species isn't accounted for? Well, who was Cubone's mother? The first and second games are full of this sort of thing.

But the games continue to stagnate and wither when there are obviously mistakes and a lot of potential that is just being ignored. This is sad, and for this hypothetical "fixed" game, somebody seriously needs to stop fucking around and update the now decade old pokemon. They gave Rodan three horns and a beam weapon in 1993, so why the hell doesn't pokemon even try?

That said, edgier for edgier's sake is retarded, and Todd McFarlane is a hack. What we need is just a simple redesign. Jigglypuff should still be cute, but Dragonite should look like an actual dragon, is what I'm saying.

So I lied. There is one other thing I want to talk about other than the actual redesigns, but I will get to both next time (assuming there is one). That will be fixing the settings and at least Missingno.

And The Award Goes Too...

Now this is just silly. I stumbled onto some website that was run by this film nut who kinda does the same thing I do (see: any post I've ever made here, they're all ranting monstrosities), only he watches people movies too. No big deal, but it does mean that it opens a guy like that up to bitching about the oscars as if they meant something (unlike me, since I learned immediately that Godzilla movies didn't show up on their radar, which I thought was complete bullshit at the age of... I don't know, seven or something, and disregarded any authority it claimed to have right then and there, and haven't changed my opinion since), and all the heartaches that follow with that.

Here you will find the article where he goes through and chooses his own ponies. First off, I don't understand what the prize is. A little statue of some guy? Who cares? It's gold... I think, is that it? Don't all these hollywood jack-offs already have a bunch of money? And it has to be money that makes gold valuable, because it sure as hell isn't pretty or useful for anything (other than a conductor, but any damn metal can do that). The praise or bragging rights? No one respects "the academy," as I have illustrated myself and with that link which clearly indicates even people who give a shit about hollywood, people movies disagree with pretty much every decision they've made. I just don't understand why they still have these giant circle jerks when the only parts of the lord of the rings-esque run time worth watching is the very beginning where they usually have a pretty funny guy do a skit before the whole show starts to die in a baroque cacophony of gaudy ivory tower masquerade pretentious "we ARE movies" bullshit extravaganza-thonic pointless high-fiving fucktards.

Whatever. I got to reading this and I thought "well wait a minute, this guy thinks HE'S critical of this crap? Ain't no way somebody who cares enough to debate the awards as if they were important can out-cynic someone who... doesn't." And with a magic pothole, I found myself with all the material I needed to have my own "YOU-GOT-IT-WRONG-ASSHOLES!!!" awards. I'll call them, the "avacodies" after my random picture I pulled out, the rare and priceless avocado colored TamaGothi, which do not physically exist in our dimension, so all I have is this picture:

I would have made white transparent and inserted a little gif of a Murphygothi or something, but I don't have that on me and I kinda just pulled this out of my ass like just right the fuck now. I didn't want it to end this way, you know.

So there it is. Now, on with the awards!

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:


"Visual Effects" is a politically correct way of referring to cgi, but when I first heard the term I thought it meant, you know, actual effects. The nominees were Star Trek, Disctric 9, and Avatar, which won. Now, there isn't much to say here because all cgi looks the same and it all looks like shit and will never get better despite the decades of hollywood jack-offs convincing themselves that they aren't watching a pile of badly composited donkey shit dance across the scene at impossible angles with a bizarre motion that makes stop motion look downright perfect, but Avatar was in 3D, and that's cool. In fact, all movies that aren't in 3D should lose automatically.

Granted, Avatar has SO MUCH cgi that it looks more like a 90's full motion video adventure game than a real movie, whereas the other look like modern video games with slightly less fake looking actors, but, again, it IS in 3D, and that's one step above in "visual effects" terms.

AVATAR

for Best Visual Effects

for Best Animated Feature

BEST EDITING


Nominees were Hurt Locker, some other movie, some other crap, Avatar again, and a bunch of movies I've never seen or heard of. Of the ones I have seen, Avatar's compositing effects are good in a 90's video game hauntology sort of way, which I just said, but that isn't really editing. As in, the editor doesn't do that. Also, Avatar already has one avocadie, so it's done. NO ONE WINS.

BEST MAKEUP


Where the special effects would go if there were any movies with special effects. The nominees were Star Trek, and two other movies that are probably made up. Star Trek HAS no special effects, only "visual" effects, so it doesn't win. But, since this was the 2010 awards, which covers movies from 2009, and the absolute best effects from any movie from 2009 was hands down Gehara (Raiga can suck it, and you're all thinking it, so shut up). Gehara was just the fucking bomb. Recently the rash of indie films filling the void left by Godzilla, Gamera, and everyone else in the late aughts (including Clover, who died in the womb) has made the whole "look" of the time be not that of genuine hauntology, but of a low budget Full Moon video or Ultraman episode that tries to make fun of it's budget, but still makes you cringe; but not because of the handywork involved, the sets and props and suits are gorgeous, but the shoddy compositing looks worse than that infamous shore scene from G2K. That said, Guilala (who is, after all, one of the big four G's, and is officially one of the big boys) has some Ariel Pink-like precision with it's hauntology scenes. I SWEAR TO GOD I watched those scenes over and over and COULD NOT believe they were recreated and not stock footage. It's still hard for me to tell which movie certain clips come from (I mean, on youtube and stuff).

But yeah, Gehara wins.

GEHARA

for Best Makeup

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE/SHORT


Documentaries aren't art. NO ONE WINS.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

The only DRAWN cartoon left in the lot is, wouldn't you know it, the last real disney movie, the one with the frog and the racism... probably not specific enough, but you know, it's the LAST ONE. Now, I know I should give it to the shoe in, but Up, a pixar joint, won the award. It's time I accept the western world's continued rebuttal against the much, much worse japanese cartoons and gave credit where credit is due.

Avatar has got to get this one. Now, I know there are some actors in it, but didn't Roger Rabbit do that too? And Space Jam? We shouldn't ignore a cartoon simply because it has a few non-smurfs, we should embrace the spirit of the work, which is clearly that of a cartoon, rather than force some role upon it which it doesn't rightly deserve. However, it shouldn't have both, so I exempt it's earlier award in favor of this.

For Best Visual Effects, NO ONE WINS.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE


Nominees are: Up, Avatar (what the fuck, again? That's it, you're disqualified from nominations), Hurt Locker, Sherlock Holmes, Something about a fox.

So furries are just plain vile, and I'm incredibly pissed off at the person who told me about those things, as I DID NOT need to know there were actual, real life people who lusted after cartoon smoldering cheetah temptresses. More to the point, these people should be exterminated, rounded up into some sort of... camp... hold on, I'm trying to concentrate... basically, the one with fox in it's name loses because I assume it's about creepy assed weeabos.

Also, I've only ever seen Avatar, and that soundtrack was fucking terrible. They didn't bother changing it to match an alien environment when they stole the rest of Ferngully. Whatever. I can't recall a soundtrack that I've liked particularly from this year either, so  fuck it. NO AWARD FOR ANYONE.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG


This one's easy. Nine Inch Nails's theme for Tetsuo 3 (or bullet man or whatever). OH! No, wait, I forgot about the song from Stilyagi with Ariel Pink! Tough choice, but at least I know for a fact that the new Tetsuo was from 2009, so they get it.

TETSUO: BULLET MAN

Nine Inch Nails - Theme from Tetsuo: Bullet Man

for Best Original Song

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM


So basically, every film that WASN'T made in America. Cool, that's fair, so they're exempt from every other category, even though none of your own films were worth watching?

What else came out in 2008? '06 through '09 is such a blur for me, film wise. And the fragmentary situation with the news since Monster Zero died (Sci-Fi Japan is the most ridiculous piece of crap I've ever seen, they're nothing but contests and cartoons, no actual monster movie news) has made sure I always find out about movies at least 6 months after they're released. With that said, this one goes to the first Digimon movie, so suck it, bitches.

DIGIMON ADVENTURE (1999)

for Best Fucking Movie Ever

I'm gonna blaze through some of these:
BEST ART DIRECTION - Same group of five or six nominees again. NO ONE WINS.
BEST SOUND MIXING - Same dickheads. NO ONE WINS.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Same again. NO ONE WINS.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN - Guess what? NO ONE WINS.

For the actor awards, the only name I can attach to a face AND stand to look at for more than five minutes is Mo'Nique. But aren't we forgetting something? Avatar had both Sigourney Weaver AND Michelle Rodriguez, while Star Trek had that kid from the White Castle movie, the other guy from Shaun of the Dead, and Sylar... FUCKING SYLAR!

Sylar wins everything.

FUCKING SYLAR

for All Of The Acting Awards

The only ones left are best Director and best Picture. Duh and Duh-er.

JAMES CAMERON

ALIENS (1986)

for Best Director

GUILALA ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT

for Best Damn Comeback Since Gamera's Heisei Movie, But Only The First Two Because G3 Sucked Balls And They Forgot The Whole "Monster" Part Of The Monster Movie

And that's it, Guilala is truly one of the big boys now, and with only on impossible to hate X-treme B-movie and one hauntology done right actually funny kaiju comedy under his belt, there is literally nothing to hate about the guy's entire career. Godzilla, Gamera, and Gappa (who cares about him?) can't say that. Plus, Guilala surprised everyone by beating Clover to the punch of being an established, big name monster with an actual series (it's 2, that counts), instead of just some faggot calling out Godzilla for no good reason and then never actually trying to prove yourself and dieing right before you had a chance to ever live. It's been three years now, and now sequel. You know how long it took Godzilla? One year. King Kong took even less than that.

Point is, Guilala is better than Gamera... and, if Toho fucks up the pacing and misses the king's 60's anniversary waiting for that legendary turd to drop, Guilala can just have the fucking throne, because Godzilla is obviously not in the mood to defend it.

I'm serious man, Guilala means business this time. Only took him 41 years, but whatever.

BEHOLD! I AM GUILALA, THE NEW KING OF THE MONSTERS!!!

Organizing Music OR Arranging Ariel Pink plus some other crap no one listens too anymore

So when I saw him at Fitzgeralds, Diva Dompe (you know, from blackblack? It's ok, I didn't either, but she's just as good as any of those L.A. bands, which no longer surprises me) came out wearing this floral jumpsuit thing that was pretty damn cool looking. But then when R-real came out he was wearing the thing and it was far cooler than anything Diva did.

I have this new computer (which is either a Decemberween or birthday present, can't remember which) and it got to me blank with a few games. Now, I've had to start fresh about... four or fives times by now, with my original E and C drives still holed up (although this new, stable computer is where it will go) at my dad's house and very little connectivity between the (now) three desktops, my laptop, and my mom's laptop on the count of that I don't trust removable hard drives anymore.

It is in these times when I have truly begun to appreciate a well seeded torrent. See, not only do I not have the balls to risk everything to back up one folder, but I also don't really have the time or resources o dig through my absurd cd collection (and thank you Vinyl, by the way, because I was actually beginning to get tired of all these increasingly fragile parts, and with USB turntables I don't even need the damned things anymore. Plus, bands that don't produce vinyl records make a bold statement about how they don't want my money!) to rip stuff, because I can't do just one thing, I have to get everything.

Torrents allow me to get the WHOLE damn body of work without spending half an hour in a cold sweat hoping that my drive doesn't crap out and I loose everything (this is, by the way, all the fault of a mac. If they were just normal fucking computers then my drive wouldn't bother me anymore, and I'd just get a terabyte thing and be done with it) or digging through boxes to re-find a cd I already ripped so that I could safely ignore the shattered jewel cases and mismatched sleeves.

Plus, it's a great feeling when, after spending so much time tracking down all the music, neatly ripping and organizing the music in a fashion that makes sense for that individual artist (as they all have different ways), and meticulously going through the files and making sure the name and file info all sync up, that I never have to do that again. Plus, there's always going to be stuff I missed, and I'm never spending another fucking dime on NIN after that bullshit trainwreck he went through called "sobriety." Of course, Trent really doesn't care nowadays and even leaks his own stuff, so there's that. Perhaps thats why the post-fragile (yeah, because I never really HEARD the Fragile before, so I didn't really get it back then, but now I realize it was him slowly wasting away in a cocaine-ish way, meaning a great theme plus Trent's already insatiable addiction to workahol equals an awesome double album that I had overlooked because I thought "starfuckers" sounded a little TOO marilyn manson-y, even though now I sort of like it) stuff sucks so bad, because it's free anyways!

The irony of this, of course, was that I actually bought both With Teeth (Sunspots and You Know What You Are? are good, Home rules, and some of the remixes are grade A, of course all I got with the album were those first two tracks and alot of guitar-driven non-industrial bulshit) AND Year Zerlao (which is easily forgiven, since the concept involved a giant monster and was really cool, although realizing what With Teeth was actually supposed to be about [because it didn't "click" for me then, but now it's almost too obvious] is cooler in concept than ANOTHER dystopian future ruled by neo-cons, even without the presence, and Year Zero only has "the Warning," which is only good because it's the presence... okay the song really is pretty good but I wouldn't have given it a chance otherwise) but never really knew about or bought Ghosts I-IV, which is easily the best thing he's ever done, before going right back into the suck-zone with The Slip, whose title seems to be a pun.

bauhaus might be a bit of a problem, as before the ONLY TRACK I didn't have throughout the entirety of everything they ever recorded was "Shows" from the 1978 tape that came with "Behind the Mask" which was only released in a couple thousand copies from Metropolis, and I don't think they're going to re-issue it soon, if ever. I even had spirit in the sky, and all the other crap from the 1978 tape. And you better believe I got Crackle, Gotham, and Go Away White. The torrents for them I'm seeing are nowhere near as asinine about completeness as I was as a crazy goth teenager that, really, didn't listen to other things. Much as I now grow tired of all of that music which has been rendered obsolete by Ariel Pink, being everything else.

So there's a very good Ariel Pink torrent out there that really helped me get a grip on his whole catalogue, despite being a little bare bones for my current needs. See, it doesn't have "Gettin' High in the Morning" (which turns out is about crystal meth). Also other stuff.

The problem is that only a few of it's mistakes can be corrected with the widely available stuff (HG 1, 2, faux 3, 4, 5, 6 (which I don't have on CD, so I'm missing a track here that, for some damn reason I can't find anywhere), 8, 9, and 10, added pizzaz and other things that you can physically get without TOO much trouble aren't counted here, but you can trust that I'm not starting out empty handed, that's for damn sure.) Most of the things that are screwy is like,YAS DuDette, where "Stevie Storm" is that plus like eight other songs, so that if I wanted to hear "Shower Me With Lipstick" I have to FF>> like it's a damn CaSette! And it's just awkward to me how FF>> gets a vinyl release while Scared Famous languishes in it's "well, at least I have Politely Declined" CD form. Which, of course, I bought specifically for that song, and didn't realize at the time what a bunk deal it was.

Most of that has been remedied nowadays, and with my USB turntable even Added Pizzaz can join in on the fun. Plus, Papermache, a version of Scared Famous (incorrectly labeled FF+) that's more complete, but not entirely, Underground with Function and I Love Her Still (like the 8-track I bought), the complete YAS DuDette, and something called "Welcome 2 Our World" are floating around on the net, so that's good news, although I won't be happy until I have absolutely everything.

For those of you wondering what was up with that whole "Haunted Graffiti" thing, it turns out it isn't as cryptic as you would believe. It was a numbering system invented around 1998 for Underground for Ariel to keep track of stuff, and not necessarily anyone else. Because this is also roughly the times when the band formed (Gary War, John Maus, and Tim Koh), it was also used as a name for this group of backers, all of whom were doing other things as well, which seemed like a good idea to seperate Ariel Pink from the "band" asthetic which didn't technically apply to the recordings.

Of course, there are always exceptions, and I still haven't gotten over not being able to see the "real" haunted graffiti. Not that I don't like Aaron and Kenny or anything, it's just... like seeing bauhaus play with a couple of guys you've never heard of playing in place of Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins.

And this thing about it being a planned group of 10 releases? Not so much. According to Ariel, Before Today can be considered 10 if you want to, but really, because it is so different from everything before it, it should be counted as 1 in... I guess just how many 4AD albums they have. This prompts the question "Well then what the hell was HG#9?" To me this seemed obvious, as the only thing it could really be is Odds + Sods (Vol. 1), and this was later confirmed. So we have the base 8 where somehow the idea that there was 10 got out, a bunch of loosely catalogued singles and EPs from the time between getting signed and touring with Paw Tracks and losing Gary and John during which many stuff is culled from the past as well as perhaps things that are new (and really, it's hard to tell, he could have gotten by without writing a single new song for 6 years, but I seriously doubt he did that, given how prolific he is) culminating in a new release of back-logged stuff that seems new to everyone who doesn't live in L.A. Then some wierd, in-studio non-lo-fi (what do you even call that?) singles, and finally another album, which doubles as the end of the HG series and beginning of... something else.

To reiterate, if you want Haunted Graffiti to go to 10, then they are:
1. Underground (1998)
2. The Doldrums (2000)
3. Scared Famous (2002)
4. FF>> (2002)
5. House Arrest (2002)
6. Lover Boy (2002)
7. Holy Shit! EP (2003) - Does this mean Stranded at Two Harbors is an HG? Probably not.
8. Worn Copy (2003)
9. Oddities Sodomies Vol. 1 (2008)
10. Before Today (2008)

Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash & Burn: Pre can count as 0, as it's the only real "album" that predates the HG thing and has a (formerly) attainable release. As I said, Papermache/Attention!/Hum It In The Streets is out there, and in a configuration that contains "Track 16," the most mysterious Ariel Pink recording of all time by my count, and the reason he never gets to say "lo-fi wan't a choice" to me. But, for a more inclusive list, let's take a look at the early stuff as dictated by R. Stevie Moore himself:

1996 The Nile Ran pt. 1-11
1996-1998 "Various Gorilla" rehearsals + performances (with a bunch of guys I don't recognize. Not sure what this is supposed to mean)
1996 Kids on Drugs (cassette, RSM makes an important note that this "includes just like peter schilling," which I suppose is a song of note in his early career. Could this be the mysterious "Track 16?" Don't bet on it.
1996 Kraftwerk/Expirements (I'm guessing it's more of his early WS-esque sampling-to-it's-natural-conclusion nonsense plus some wacky cool shit like Rain or Equus, but not those songs, mind you)
1996 Dove
1997 Death Dorm 1-4 (compilation, so don't worry about this one)
1997 tape 1 (first new for '97, if we are to assume the list is complete, which it isn't)
1997 metamorfosi/INUMI
1997 Equus 1 & 3 (here we go, I know what this is. could be versions, much longer, or just the name and is missing the track called "Equus")
1997 Master 1 & 2 (related to Equus?)
1997 BIANCA LIVE/DEMOES (ariel in a glam-punk band, apparently they left for NY and ariel didn't follow.
1998 Hum It In The Streets/Paper Mache (thouroughly not a mystery anymore)
1998 Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash n' Burn + Pre (note here the "&" is an "n'" and the colon becomes a plus sign. This is called a compilation on RSM's site, so I'm guessing the tracks are identical to the HEM release, meaning I don't know where each song actually comes from, so I could potentially have all of "tape 1" and just not know it)
1998 Gorilla Live 1 + Solo CD (Gorilla must have been a loose collection of people playing, roughly, as a group, sort of like Psycho Mental Terrorists, or PMT, or whatever name they decided to use that week. Here begins a series of releases from them... I guess?)
1998 Unreleased Gorilla tape (then why is it here?)
1998 GORILLA 2 CD
1998 Appleasians Vaults (another group of releases this time refering to "Appleasians." Could it be another band Ariel was in? I don't know, but it was clearly a unified concept sometime in early-to-mid 1998)
1998 Appleasians Greatest Hits CD (all they have is the vaults and a best of? Where is this coming from?)
1998 Appleasians LIVE / The Birth of Haunted Graffiti DEMOES CD (this is intriguing. Is Applesasians the fore-runner of what would become the Haunted Graffiti? Was HG originally a project under the Appleasians name? Was Appleasians an unrelated concept that failed to take off because Ariel left to pursue said haunted graffiti? If so, is there a parallel universe where APPLEASIANS, and not APHG, have rendered all past and future attempts at music obsolete? Many questions remain unanswered)
1998 Haunted Graffiti - Cemetaries/Railrods first album CD (C/R is called "crash crash on the drummer" on subsequent releases. This is interesting because it is the first in a group of releases named after well known APHG songs. As an album, this is likely a stripped down version of Underground)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Underground Double CD (17 tracks can fit onto one CD, so I'm wondering what the other junk is. Judging from the rest f the list, Phantasm and Young Pilot Astray may show up, and in fact the addendum to the Doldrums CD, called Vital Pink, may be around this group and showed up there in case Underground never saw print from paw tracks, hence "Vital Pink.")
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Spires in the Snow EP CD (can't be anything surprising here)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Phantasm EP (or here)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Young Pilot Astray + Phantasm EP CD (again, nothing new)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - The Doldrums Sessions CD (the idea of Ariel Pink sitting around in a studio saying stuff like "that take was good, let's hear that back" while sitting around a sound booth and listening intently is hilarious to me, although one must assume he did this for Before Today)
2000 Haunted Graffiti - The Doldrums CD (and now we have entered fully modern APHG territory)
2000 STEVIEPINK - Ariel Pink + R. Stevie Moore (this one is listed as an upcoming CD, but the only real evidence we have of this genuine collab happening is, well, Stevie Pink. That showed up later, alongside RSM's Brain, on Scared Famous, and then after that on either Papergutz or YAS DuDette. So this thing may not even be a thing)
2000 Ariel Pink w/ Rebecca Lynn Excuse Live VIDEO (not even sure how to interpret this)
2000 Ariel Pink - Safeguards from Home (Thanx Mama, I'm Dead) VIDEO (so, uh, SfH shows up later on Odds + Sods, I don't why in the hell... just forget it)
2000 Mother of God + Orange S*NS - LIVE (I have no clue, but since APHG was in full swing by this time, I'm not sure it will ever become a concern, and it seems to me as if this was a one-off gig of some conglomerate L.A. bands that then dissapeared to time)

We also have "Welcome 2 Our World," most of which I've never heard of before, but happens to have alot of tracks listed as a tracklist for a version of YAS DuDette (like hold your breath and wait and nighttime is great). There is an extended list on the wikipedia page (ironic as they usual omit information) but this is merely things that are track-down-able at there original release dates, like the other HG#'s and the other junk.

I've also got something called papergutz (which is... I don't know) and an "untitled CD-R" which has Omen and a shit load of stuff with no name that I haven't heard on ANYTHING else, and some of it is purposefully hi-fi (like New Trumets sort of is, and some even in the style of the enigmatic "track 16")

Now, after Paw Tracks, the genuinely obtainable Ariel Pink begins to show up, this was:

2004 The Doldrums (Paw Tracks, CD)
2005 Worn Copy (Paw Tracks, CD)
2006 House Arrest (Paw Tracks, CD)
2006 Lover Boy (CD on... Ballbearings something? My LP is by Cooler Cat, and that's all I know, but the CD has an extra live track called "You Are My Angel" that I've never seen or heard anywhere else, so it's kinda important)
2006 Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash & Burn: Pre (Human Ear Music's direct reissue of an old compilation of even older stuff. You NEED this, so HEM's... dissolving has become a pretty big pain in the ass for me)
2006 Stranded at Two Harbors (the Holy Shit! album)
2007 Underground (this version omits Function and I Love Her Still... unlike the 8-track)
2007 Scared Famous/FF>> (by HEM, CD, called the "West Coast Tour Edition," it is a hodge-podge mix of material from both albums, omitting much of the best songs. And while FF>> has since been saved by a Vinyl release (from what I can only assume is Cooler Cats), SF still languishes, although Privacy, Deathcrush 99, Birds in My Tree, and Shedon'tknow-Whattodowithherself are out there if you look)
2008 Oddities Sodomies Vol. 1
2010 Before Today (4AD LP & CD)

After this started up, a number of various releases showed up at shows, and it's pretty much common custom to snatch anything you don't recognize, because you won't find it later.

2005:
Pedestrian Pop Hits - A joke? See, because it's one really long track that is anything but a pedestrian pop hit. Very cool, find it if you can. If you give up it's in the torrent, and due to it's length it would need to appear on it's own, so don't expect to see it pop up again soon.

2006:
Ariel Friedman EP - All of the songs here seem to be new, and only Facts of Destiny and Ariel (Friedman) show up on anything else. Which is a shame, because Choose to Loose rules the schools.

Gates of Zion/Ghosts - an Australian tour goody. Gates of Zion is obviously new for this record, and the Ghosts track seems to be cleaned up, it may be a new recording or simply tweaked, it's hard to tell. If you don't live in australia and don't have a time machine, no worries, both tracks are on youtube. "Gates," by the by, is fantastic and simply needs to be put on something a little more accesible than an Australian-only tour exclusive.

Witchunt Suite for WWIII - the closest Ariel is ever going to get to social commentary, and some of the coolest shit he's ever done. This masterpiece, in two parts totalling about 20 minutes, have a habit of popping up in different places, including some of the iterations of YAS DuDette, under a couple of different names. There's a good chance you can get these, if not actually being put on an album (they are not, unfortunately, on Odds + Sods).

My Molly EP - Really important. My Molly is out now on the vinyl FF>>, The Bottom is on Odds + Sods, both and gox2 are on YAS DuDette, but Rock Play appears no where else. This is a crime, because My Molly is pretty much the perfect song. You will end up with these if you're doing it right, but it's something to keep you're finger on.

2007:
YAS DuDette - this is extremely important, and a more or less "full" version is out there, so get it. YAS was a our only deal, and I'm not sure what the full tracklist is, but there is one I've found from a blog or something that pretty much includes... everything. This thing is just begging for a rerelease as "Oddities Sodomies Vol. 2." Are you listening, Ariel? You need to do this one right.

2008:
Live at Pacific Palace Aids - a real thing, but I know next to nothing about it.

Can't Hear My Eyes/Evolution's a Lie - The first clue that something was up for me, because, as I have stated, I don't live in Australia. That's cool though, because Gates is more properly "HG9" era than Before Today era. This was a genuine new song with a genuine re-recording b-side. I don't understand why "Revolution" became "Evolution," especially considering it makes him look like a crazy person from uneducated eyes, but the title reverted to it's original form for the album (and what might be a re-re-recording)

2009:
Round and Round/Mistaken Wedding - It was a mistake not to put the b-side, which has it's own video, on the album. Whatever, I'm not buying a single for one song, so your loss.

Cooler Cat 7" - This one is a little less ignorable, though. It has Flashback (which does not appear on Before Today), Reminisces (which does), Rama Ya (which is the first recording released of a song the band is heard rehearsing in a video from 2007 or so, but is not on BT), and Phantasma (a longer name for a re-recording that does not show up on BT, but was already on Odds + Sods, so big deal). This one is pretty important, and there are apparently still some out there? I can't order shit online so I wouldn't know, but there is still alot of interest in it at least.

Grandes Exitos - isn't it just like Ariel to make a best of... and then turn it into a "you had to be there" tour only fiasco? Well, this is one I can safely not give a shit about. I'm more worried about...

Kind of Kind/RSM's Brain - Not only is this the second best (My Molly was a kick ass idea) idea for a APHG single, but it's only the B-SIDE of a song that I'VE NEVER EVEN HEARD!!! This one is driving me insane, because I had the chance to see him in 2009, but it fell apart when I couldn't get a fucking ride to Hailey's. Total Bullshit, man. And now it's like it never even existed! Look, if Gates of fucking Zion can find it's way to youtube, why the hell can't Kind of Kind, which is COMPLETELY NEW!!!

It just pisses me off, is all.

There is undoubtedly more crap too, but thinking about it gives me a headache.